


Speaking in Tongues

by Katsitting (Nekositting)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: All Drabbles Are Individually Rated and Tagged Appropriately, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Muggle, Blood and Gore, Canon Universe, Canon-Typical Violence, Dubious Consent, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, Fluff, M/M, Not Beta Read, Psychological Torture, Soulmates, Torture, Tumblr drabbles, Vampires, psychopomp
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-03
Updated: 2018-05-14
Packaged: 2018-11-08 12:47:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 37
Words: 93,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11081895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nekositting/pseuds/Katsitting
Summary: I give to you a more fixed location for my tumblr drabbles in the Harrymort/Tomarry one word prompt adventure. As stated in my other drabble collection for an entirely different fandom, some will be long and some will be short.





	1. The Darkness Has Consumed You

**Author's Note:**

> Keep in mind I go by nekositting as well on here, there are other works there if you are interested that have been more fleshed out.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Graphic depictions of blood; discussion of murder.
> 
> The prompt: Tomarry + "The darkness has consumed you"

 

“The darkness has consumed you, Tom.” Harry whispered, numb despite the flurry of emotions drowning him completely where he stood in the posh living room. Harry could make out shock, grief, anger, and some combination of all three emotions as he watched Riddle turn around to face him.

Riddle was drenched in blood—so saturated with the viscous liquid that there was little the red did not stain.

Harry stepped back, unable to stop the motion when Riddle moved towards him, his fingers reaching out for him almost as if he needed to be grounded. But the digits were just as saturated in blood.

Harry felt like he might be sick.

“Has it, Harry? Will you really vilify me for doing what any person would do in my situation?” Harry heard Riddle speak, but it was drowned by the sound of Harry’s own heartbeat. Harry’s heart was beating so quickly that it came as a shock when Riddle continued to speak, but the words were completely incomprehensible.

“Are you even listening, Harry?” Riddle continued, backing Harry effectively against the grandfather clock at the opposite end of the room. Harry wanted to run screaming rather than stand another bloody second in the same room with Riddle.

Harry had thought the boy had changed—that he had done something in befriending the boy to change the nature of the beast. But there was no hope for it now, there was an intensity in Riddle’s gaze that made Harry’s blood run cold—that made the air in the room stagnant and heavy.

“Harr—“

“D-don’t touch me!” Harry shouted, noting the way Riddle’s shoulders tensed at the pure fear and hostility in Harry’s tone. “You’ve butchered them, Tom. How is this just?” Harry did not notice when he started to cry, but the tears came down easily from his cheeks.

Tom looked almost confused by Harry’s reaction. But of course, why would Harry ever think that Riddle would understand the consequences of what he has done? The boy had no remorse—no true sense of guilt for any of his actions.

It did not matter to him that he looked like a demon so completely drenched in blood not his own. It probably did not matter that Harry was panicking the way he was at having been forced to watch Riddle murder these people in cold blood.

What mattered was that the people had _threatened_ Tom, and for a moment, Harry had felt the boy was justified to react in rage. In anger. Harry had been through abuse once before.

But _this?_ This was bloody madness.

It was such a shock to the senses, so much so that Harry could think to do nothing but press himself into the clock behind him. He should have thought to pull out his wand in the event that Riddle attacked him for his adverse reaction. Harry should have done _more_ than this. Harry should have stopped him, should have whispered a spell to unarm Riddle before he decided to torture his blood relatives.

The fact that Harry did not made him just as complicit in the act as Riddle. It made no difference to Harry that he had not even cast the spell, he practically had when he failed to do anything at all to prevent this. It was that notion alone that made the tears fall harder than they already were, unending and unstoppable despite the growing look of concern in Riddle’s eyes.

“Shush, sweetheart.” Riddle murmured, the sound of it the familiar tone he reserved for only Harry. “I will get rid of the bodies, and clean up the mess.” It was odd at first, the first time Harry had heard Riddle speak to him in such a way. But Harry recognized it for what it was.

Riddle, in his own way, had grown to care for Harry. Harry had thought it was a sign that Harry could in fact change Riddle—that he would not need to go through with the half-baked plan the Order had set him on to kill Riddle before he became Voldemort.

But he was wrong, and Harry had done absolutely nothing to prevent these deaths.

“No one deserves to die this way, Tom. I-I can’t do this.” Harry started to hyperventilate when Riddle finally closed the distance between them, taking Harry easily in his arms despite Harry’s weak attempts to get away.

All Harry could smell was blood.

The stickiness of it clinging onto his skin just as easily as it coated Tom—the gelatinous fluid enough to make Harry want to be violently ill. But he refrained, simply because Harry thought he might pass out.

“Harry, it will be alright.” Riddle whispered into Harry’s ear, the sound of it doing little to comfort Harry’s mounting distress. “They attacked me, Harry. I-I could not control myself when they made to hurt you. ”

It was the fact that Harry, on some level, understood that made the situation all the worse. It was like an illness clawing its way into his chest—and he _ached_ every single place it touched.

“Tom, that was—“ Harry could not speak any more, Riddle’s arms tightening so much that it was difficult to breathe.

“Don’t think about it, Harry. You know I will always protect you. I won’t ever allow for anyone to touch you; for vermin like _them_ to touch your name with their lips.”

It was sick, so sick that Tom thought it appropriate to confess his love for him at this particular instance. To promise him the world after Tom leveled it all to the ground with Harry watching at the sidelines like some accomplice.

He might as well had, he’d as good as killed them for being the cause that tipped the boy over in the first place. The fact he did nothing only damned him further and made it difficult to fight off the desire to pass out.

“It’s okay, everything is going to be fine. You’ll see.” Harry was so caught up in the moment that he failed to see the smirk on the boy’s lips, victory and satisfaction making Tom’s once angelic features demonic.

Harry doubted it ever would be.

“If the darkness has consumed me, Harry—.” Harry heard the boy whisper into his ear, his face smearing blood on Harry’s cheek and hair, the sensation of it drawing a shudder of disgust. “Are you not tainted as well? You watched me do it and you did nothing at all.”

Harry stiffened in the boy’s arms, having the worst of his own fears exposed like a raw nerve to air and water in the air.

Tom was right. Harry may not have done it, but he was just as sullied too.


	2. Intrinsic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: General mind manipulation.
> 
> The prompt given: Harrymort + "Intrinsic" by darklordtomarry
> 
> Please leave your kudos and your comments :)

 

When his scar burst with pain, the sting and the burn of it cut through him like a hot blade to butter.

He was screaming, his voice growing hoarse with his pain as he tried to fight off the croon of Voldemort’s voice in his head. Harry had never heard him so clearly—almost as if the man himself was whispering into Harry’s ear as he writhed and screamed on the broken ground.

His knees ached, but it was nothing compared to the pulsing pain in his scar. It was nothing like the force of monster’s will boring through him—quickly beating him down to submit, _to give in._

But Harry did not give in; he refused to give in despite how badly he wanted the ache to stop.

“ _Give in, Harry_.”

He heard the monster croon so softly, almost comfortingly into his mind. But Harry jerked his head to and fro, unwilling to allow the dark lord to consume his thoughts once more. Harry had managed to fight off the monster once in Fifth year when the dark lord had tried to possess him, but this was different.

This pain was an ache that bore deep in his soul—almost as if something inside Harry was reaching out for the dark lord. It was as if something inside Harry _wanted_ to be held in to those spidery fingers, to settle itself in the bones of the monster in Harry’s mind, than sit any longer in Harry’s chest.

It was absurd how much Harry craved to give in. Harry was not just fighting the will of a monster, but fighting the desire inside him to just let go.

“ _Nothing will take you away from me. Now that I_ know.” The dark lord’s words sounded more of a promise than a threat, the gentleness of the monster’s tone so light that it reminded Harry of how muggle’s spoke to frightened animals. It eroded at Harry’s sanity, the contradictory nature between his own understanding of who Voldemort was and the Voldemort he was seeing now, almost unreal.

But he struggled then, feeling the way the scar started to weep tears of blood on his forehead. He could feel the droplets of it, can almost taste the bitter metallic flavor in the back of his throat as he continued to writhe and scream.

The pain neither abated nor grew worse. It was like static in the back of Harry’s eyelids.

Touching the locket had been a mistake, the shock of it somehow creating a more firm connection between Harry’s mind and Voldemort’s. The instant Harry had done it, Voldemort was in his mind before he could even think to alert his friends.

If Harry had not been screaming, he might have wondered where his friends even were; why they were not at his side comforting him through this pain as he valiantly fought Voldemort’s mind.  But he was alone in the darkness, his back digging into the moist earth beneath it as he continued to fight for some semblance of control.

“ _They have abandoned you, Harry. I will always be at your side_.” Voldemort seized on the direction Harry’s thoughts had taken, pushing into the seed of doubt that Harry tried to ignore.

No!

His friends would never abandon him if they knew he was in trouble. His friends could not have possibly expected to Harry to be thrown into danger so swiftly or suddenly. Harry knew that his friends had been scouting together for more supplies in the dead of night—they did not leave Harry alone because they wanted to, but simply as a precaution to protect the tent and the few things they had left.

It made sense. But Harry could not help his tears when he felt another powerful wave of agony wash through him, spreading from the scar and through him completely.

It felt like he was being ripped in two—his will to resist and the dark lord’s will that he give in forcing parts of him apart that Harry himself had never thought to.

“ _Your soul craves to be reunited with mine. Let go, Harry. You are only hurting yourself in your pitiful endeavor.”_ Voldemort spoke again, the voice even louder this time; the ghost of lips against his ear drawing from him both shivers of disgust and sparks of something he could not quite name.

 _Never¸_ Harry had thought viciously. Mentally shoving the man away.

Harry could practically see Voldemort in his mind’s eye, the same blood hue to his irises burning with an emotion Harry could not name. Harry voice cracked when he screamed once more, the sound of it a hiss now as he continued to push, and _push_ the man out.

_Getoutgetoutgetout._

And then the pain stopped abruptly.

Harry was breathing harshly through his mouth, still seeing the powerful face of the monster that had sacrificed it all to defeat death; to revel in the ashes of a dying world and build it anew.

“Get out of my bloody mind!” Harry shouted and he saw the image of Voldemort begin to flicker, blinking in and out of existence. It was almost like the television back in the Dursley’s home during an awful rainstorm—watching the clear faces of the actor’s disappear and reappear in a manner of seconds.

 “ _I am already in your mind, Harry Potter. You cannot eject what you have already allowed in._ ” The monster simply stated, no inflection to his words at all as he spoke. Harry hated it.

There was no way Harry could have let such a monster in.

“No, you do not belong here.” Harry shouted the words, slowly rising from the ground. His entire body ached, and he probably looked barmy shouting at a creature that was only in his head. But Harry took comfort in the power in his limbs even as he shook, and he took comfort in his voice, even if it was hoarse and sounded more a croak.

“ _You and I belong naturally together. You are mine.”_ Voldemort’s voice sounded faint, but Harry could still make out the words. “ _Are you so ignorant that you cannot feel the emptiness in your chest? That there is something essential crying out to be whole once more?”_

Harry shook his head, feeling the familiar tugging in his chest. He squashed it down, never looking away from the intense red eyes that were boring into his own. His chest was too tight, the pressure against his ribs making it difficult to breathe as he tried to make sense of what Voldemort was even talking about.

Belong together? The man was absolutely mad!

“We _do not_ belong together. I would rather _die_.” And Harry meant the words, even when his stomach churned at the prospect of being separated from the dark lord. “Get out of my head!”

And then Voldemort was gone.

But it did not relieve Harry in the least. Harry could still feel him in his mind like stain. He shuddered with disgust when he felt tears spring to his eyes, unsure of where they had come from but hating himself entirely for it.

He felt empty, so completely empty. Harry knew the monster was right—had known since the moment the man had possessed him once and given Harry a taste of something he could not name.

But he would be damned before he gave in to the part of him that longed for the dark lord. The part of him that desired to mix their identities until it was neither Harry Potter nor Voldemort, but something else entirely.

Harry fought down the wave of nausea that overcame him and headed back to the tent, ignoring the pleased hum in the back of his mind as he went.


	3. Translucent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: General mind manipulation.
> 
> The prompts: Harrymort + "translucent" by crackmonkeytrash
> 
> Please leave your kudos and your comments :)

 

Harry could see him in his mind’s eye as if he were some sort of specter. Voldemort’s gaze never faltering, never failing, and never blinking despite the brightness of the field they both stood in. It was a strange sight—too see a creature Harry associated with darkness out in such a bright, and admittedly, peaceful scene Harry had crafted in his own mind.

There was a time where Harry would have screamed and shouted for the man to leave; to stop destroying the vivid verdant field with the darkness of his robes; to cease staining the soft blues of the sky with the blood red of his eyes. The monster was a dark speck in the overall glow of the looming sun, accentuating rather than hiding the whiteness of his face—the gauntness of his skin that no dark potion could ever salvage. Voldemort did not belong here, but there he was. And Harry accepted his presence for what it was: a contrast between light and dark, good and…something else entirely.

The time for him to scream and shout had ceased several dream sequences ago, and so there, Harry stood—watching the way Voldemort’s robes billowed in the passing breeze.

The man looked at all nothing like he did when he was a boy—overtaken completely by the shadows in his arguable present heart. Harry once believed there was a void there instead of the muscle that pumped much needed platelets, red blood cells, white blood cells through each individual network underneath their flesh.

But Harry had learned that to some extent Voldemort bled just like them. He was a monster, yes, but he was still in fact a _man._ Voldemort may have destroyed all traces of his humanity in his goal to power, but it was that very humanity in him that had led him down the path. It was not a foreign concept—even if Muggles and Wizards alike wanted to treat it as such. And it was that very fact that left a bitter taste in the back of Harry’s throat.

“Not going to throw a tantrum like a spoilt child this time?” Harry heard the man speak, catching the way each individual syllable was uttered without pause or inflection. There was no malice in the tone despite the insulting nature of Voldemort’s words—in fact, there was hardly ever any emotion at all in the Voldemort of his mind.

It was funny, really. To see the man Harry had spent years of his life fearing in his mind. Harry supposes that the war may have ended, but there was still something left of it inside him to this day.

Harry had tried to starve that part of himself with work as head of the Auror department. He had tried to ignore it by spending more time than necessary with Ron and Hermione; visit new pastures in this new time of peace with Ginny. But nothing could really disappear the stain that clung to his soul—the part of himself that lived so intimately close to the soul piece of the monster before him.

It almost made Harry want to laugh at just how pathetic his life really was. Harry had thought he’d find peace after the man’s death, but here he was, standing in a peaceful meadow only Harry’s mind would create, with the very man that brought chaos into Harry’s existence. It was almost as if Harry’s mind somehow _missed_ the part of Harry that never was. A piece of himself Harry never really knew was there until he was severing it from his own soul.

Harry was almost sure the real Voldemort would have found this to be poetic justice. The perfect revenge against the one person that had defeated Voldemort over and over throughout his lifetime—presenting obstacle after obstacle, setback after setback in each of his carefully laid plans. The one that had practically killed Voldemort despite Harry’s reservations in even wanting to do in the in first place.

Harry was no killer—he knew that. But he still felt like he was when laying in his bed after another night without Ginny to warm it with him. He could not scratch away the memory of the man crumbling to the ground at his feet—of the light fading from once expressive red eyes that hungered for _more_ and _more_ of this world.

“What would be the point? We both know you’re not really real.” Harry sounded tired even to his own ears, despite only being just a month over twenty-five. It was still a shock, in some way, that the war had really been over for as long as it was.

But then again, if one was seeing Voldemort’s face in their head every night, they’d think the war was still not over despite the pitying glances from friends and family saying otherwise. Despite the relative peace and joy that came with the final death of the most feared Dark Lord in decades.

“Do you really think this is a mere manifestation of your guilt for failing to save me, Harry Potter? How naïve you are.” The man sounded amused, the sound of it shocking Harry completely. It was like dropping pebbles into placid waters—the ripples of it notifying all that there was a disruption in the natural order of things and that they needed to _run_.

Ripples meant boats and fishing lines, it meant boys and girls taking dives into the cool waters where the fish lived. It meant an end to peace, and in some respect, it was almost as if Voldemort’s show of emotion was a precursor to some new arc in their growing interactions in Harry’s dreams.

“Are you not? I killed you. I watched you fall dead when we both cast our spells.” Harry watched the way Voldemort’s shoulders began to tremble, not in anger as anyone would readily assume, but with laughter as he stepped closer to where Harry stood. Each step disrupting the silence that settled around them in the field.

The distance appeared at first glance so very large—seeming to go on easily for miles in the landscape Harry had created, but in reality, Harry was sure it was only a short distance. It should have motivated Harry to move, but he could not find it in himself to widen the distance. There was nothing for Harry to fear here, it was all in his mind. Voldemort could not hurt him here—could not hurt anyone at all in this fictional place Harry had created in his mind. Voldemort only existed because Harry had made it happen—it was his way to cope with the trauma of fighting a war at such a young age.

Of having to murder someone for the first time.

Voldemort’s death left a mark in Harry, and that was why when Voldemort finally stopped in front of Harry with only a few short inches between them, the light of the sun passing through the inkiness of Voldemort’s robes and skin as they both stood there, Harry did not move. Harry simply gazed into the redness of Voldemort’s eyes.

They glittered underneath the light like gems, the most unique shades of garnet and ruby red percolating in them.

“Oh, _Harry_. You never learn, do you?” The man whispered the words, the hiss of them snaking itself into Harry’s chest like vipers hiding in the underbrush and cobras preparing to spring at a looming threat. Harry wondered idly if this was how Nagini would have killed him had she wrapped herself around him—crushing his chest until it _hurt_ to breathe.

Harry prepared himself for what Voldemort would do next, having already dreamt this enough times to know what would come. It hardly scared Harry anymore to experience it—to hear his worst fears thrown back at him before the specter vanished and left Harry alone in his dreams to cope with the weight of his guilt.

But Voldemort did not do what he usually did—he did not say the words that would crush Harry’s heart or dissipate into the light as he often did after taunting Harry.

Instead, Voldemort laughed and stepped into the little space there was already between them. He consumed all of Harry’s vision, the pallor of his skin painful to Harry’s own weary eyes as he tried to understand—to calm his beating heart from the rush of blood and adrenaline coursing through his veins.

It felt familiar and yet not. This was different, and Harry had no clue what to make of it all now.

“I gave a piece of myself to you, Harry. It was only fair that I take something in return. When you took a piece of me inside you, you bound us so tight that neither you nor I knew where we began or where we ended.” Harry felt his face drain of color, almost as pale as Voldemort when the man’s lips ghosted against Harry’s ear.

“Is this not what you wished? I am alive despite the odds mounted against me. I am here, and I grow _stronger_ with each passing day.” Harry stepped back, but Voldemort seized him by the shoulders—trapping him in Voldemort’s arms despite the transparency of his skin.

Between the shock of Voldemort touching him and the weight of the man’s words, Harry felt like he might be sick. He was unsure if it was a scream or bile that wanted to crawl out of his throat at that precise second.

What has he _done?_

“To think, the Boy-Who-Lived is the one to resurrect me. To _miss_ me the most in a world that continues to move forward without a glance to the past. How…sweet.”

All Harry could see was the burning red of Voldemort’s eyes, the panic crawling over his flesh stealing all the air from his lungs. Voldemort was—but he couldn’t!?

And then Harry was awake, his breaths coming so quickly that he was unsure if he was even breathing at all. It took Harry more than a moment to really realize he had finally awoken from the dream—to settle the sickness in his stomach that had him tipping too close to the precipice.

His heart was beating too quickly, his skin so clammy with his sweat that the sheets beneath him were drenched in it. Harry spread his arms to the left side of it, feeling the smoothness of the sheets to find some sort of grounding and to make sure that Ginny was gone. It made Harry feel guilty that he was happy to know she was gone, but Harry doubted he could explain the nature of his dreams to her again. He had tried numerous time before, but there was a lump that prevented the words from coming out his throat each time.

When the seconds stretched to minutes, his heart finally slowing and his breaths deepening into something that resembled peace, Harry finally thought back to what he had just seen in his mind’s eye. Harry wanted to believe it was only a dream; it really could not be more than what it was. There was simply no way that Voldemort could really be stuck between the cracks of Harry’s soul when Harry had already died once the in the past.

It was impossible for the man to return. Harry knew it was permanent when the killing curse had struck Voldemort in the middle of their duel. Harry had _seen_ it; the sight of death finally seizing the man in its hands enough to rattle Harry into a permanent state of guilt.

Arguably, even post-traumatic stress disorder.

It was enough for Harry to fault himself for the man’s death. Enough to relive the battles in his mind over and _over_ again until all Harry could do was sit alone in his office. It was almost pathetic how in some way Harry wished the man actually lived—to free him of this guilt. Harry felt like something was taken along with him when Voldemort had died, and Harry knew that there was no one he could really speak to concerning these feelings.

His friends would not understand. Ginny would never understand. None of them would—not when this world had moved without Harry—glossing over the losses and the pain. None thinking of how Harry had been molded to die and kill despite his desires not to stain his own hands in blood.

Harry did not know what to do with this feeling trapped inside him—hating himself for how he kept seeing the face of his enemy of his mind, reopening a wound that Harry tried to sloppily suture together.

He was panicking again, noting the way his fingers shook when he finally convinced himself to grab his glasses from the nightstand. It took him longer than it normally would, the fidgeting making his movements sloppy and uncoordinated, but when he finally did, he slipped them over his nose. The weight was comforting, giving Harry the chance to inhale deeply to calm himself.

Harry pieced himself together—each layer of his identity stretching to cover every single crack in his soul.

The moment Harry opened his eyes, he wished he had not.

Voldemort stood before him, a glowing specter standing by the only exit in Harry’s bedroom. The monster looked more solid than Harry had ever remembered seeing him—making out each network of arteries and veins beneath the translucent skin.

Harry scrambled back, his eyes wide with disbelief and fear as he tried to make sense of the sight of what he had considered the manifestation of his guilt—and the longing Harry felt for the piece of Voldemort taken from him.

“ _Soon, Harry Potter_.”

It took everything in Harry to silence the scream that wanted to leave him.

 


	4. Enchanting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: This one is all warm and fuzzy. 
> 
> The prompt: Tomarry + "Enchanting" by hollyjinx
> 
> Please leave your kudos and your comments :)

 

The first time Tom had laid eyes on the boy, he had thought he was coming down with something. His chest felt unusually tight, almost as if each lung had been submerged in water—drowned by the weight of condensation and steam building in his chest.

The boy was small, smaller than most of the boys in his year. Tom had thought it odd that someone their age could be so frail, the delicate width of his wrists something Riddle could easily wrap around with one of his own hands. It was perhaps that alone that made Tom approach the boy—to go out of his way in this hellhole of a school after spending years building a reputation.

No one would ever question his decisions, not after he crushed the boy that stood above the food chain several weeks into the semester. Tom had wormed his way in—played the docile and charming boy until he had acquired quite the position of trust in the inner circle of the popular group.

It was easy to fool them—Tom did not spend years dancing circles around the matron at the orphanage only be thwarted from some snot-nosed brat. Tom, despite living with a new family would not lose his touch now—it was a usual skill he had sharpened into a point over time, it would be remiss of him to forget the life beaten into his skin. This new arrangement worked well for him—the new parents would get a new son to boast about to their pathetic friends, and Tom acquired a place where he had a warm bed to sleep in and a decent meal at the table.

It was a convenient arrangement and Tom played his role remarkably well.

So it was easy to approach the new boy, enraptured by the disarray in the boy’s attire. It looked much too big for him—nearly three times the boy’s size. It billowed around his frame like a dress almost, and it said a lot about the life the boy must be living at home.

Tom remembered the gray uniforms the matron would force them to wear—patching at the holes until the material could no longer sustain the abuse and the wear of time. It was similar to the gaudy material the boy was wearing now even if it was not an eyesore gray, and Tom could not help the curiosity burning in his brain.

Just who was this boy? Tom could not recall ever seeing someone like him at the Orphanage. Tom would assuredly remember had he seen the boy before. He made it his business to leave no stone unturned, no face unknown. To have knowledge was to survive in the orphanage, and that was no different here at school. Though, what Tom really could not understand was his fascination with the child. The boy only a few years his minor was unremarkable from what he could see at a distance. But there was just _something_ about him that made it difficult for Tom to ignore—there was a glow to his skin despite how unusually gaunt he looked; how brittle his bones appeared and how weak at first glance.

The boy looked like a broken doll, but there was _fire_ him. It was unmistakable to see that energy percolating in the boy with the purpose he moved. Sure, he was admittedly a bit skittish, but he did not run from others. He walked amongst them as if he had all the right to be standing in the halls with his much taller, and healthier peers.

And it became even more readily apparent the closer Tom approached, nothing the ease in his shoulders where he was standing by the porch beam. But when Tom finally was mere feet from the boy and the boy turned to face Tom, Tom was struck once more.

Tom felt the breath leave his lungs, the same twisting sensation now dropping to the pit of his stomach as he tried to make sense of just what this foreign feeling was. It did not abate no matter how much Tom tried to quell it, and he felt a growing sense of irritation itching at his skin at his inability to control himself.

Of course, Tom’s carefully crafted mask was kept perfectly in place.

“Hello there, have never seen you before?” Tom murmured the words easily, curling his lips into a small smile at the boy despite the boy’s growing look of confusion. It was the most fascinating thing Tom had ever seen—he was used to anger and fear, but not to this strange flurry of emotion on the boy’s expression.

The boy looked a cross between confused and surprised.

Tom noted the way the boy’s mouth opened and closed rapidly, as if he were trying to say something but caught himself each time he was preparing to answer the simple question. Tom could not help the mounting amusement in his chest, soothing the irritation he had felt earlier at the utter helplessness in his discrete reactions.

“My name is Harry Potter. I just transferred over, that might be why you’ve never seen me before.” The boy’s voice was clear, all traces of his confusion gone and replaced with a confidence that seemed to only amuse Tom further.

Interesting.

“My name is Tom Riddle. It is a pleasure to meet you, Harry.” Tom was surprised that he actually meant it, not quite understanding just how a perfect stranger could have gotten such a reaction out of him.

Tom had only ever felt close to the snakes he found while playing outside at the orphanage—he never felt this comfortable with humans before. It should have concerned him to feel this at all, but he ignored it entirely when the boy’s eyes brightened at the pleasant answer, the wariness Tom had noted in Harry’s shoulders melting away.

The boy’s eyes seemed to burn Tom’s insides—the emerald in the iris like that of the garden snakes he had played with numerous times while waiting for the day to crest into evening. There were specks of gold in there, mingling with the green so perfectly that Tom could not find words to speak.

He was dumbstruck by how expressive the boy was—how _alive_ this boy Harry was despite how weak the boy clearly looked. Harry looked like someone that could readily break if pushed too hard, like his bones might snap if bumped into too hard in a game of hide and seek.

Tom could not help but want to smother the child into his arms, wanting him all for himself. No one had ever looked so happy to see Tom before—everyone was either afraid or hateful. There was never an in-between with the children even if he was perfectly polite and charming. They either saw Tom as the threat he was, which they most definitely should, or as a stuck up know-it-all that had no place in the little world they had created.

But with Harry, Tom could start over. The boy did not know him.

It was an opportunity to start a fresh beginning—not needing to employ more…aggressive tactics to get the boy to interact with him. The prospect of this, admittedly, was exciting for Tom.

“It’s nice to meet you too, Tom. You’re the first person to talk to me since I started here.” Harry blushed up at Tom, the color making the green of the boy’s eyes glitter more brightly underneath the glow of the morning sun.

Tom could not help himself at all when he took the boy’s hand in his, reveling at the way Harry’s smile seemed to widen into a pleased grin. Harry did not detract as Tom first assumed—it was definitely pleasing.

 _Yes,_ Tom thought to himself, as he maneuvered the boy into the school, his hand still tightly wrapped around Harry’s. _Things would definitely be much more interesting now_.

After all, Tom had found quite the enchanting friend.


	5. Earthen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: General creepiness
> 
> Prompt given: Tomarry + "Earthen"
> 
> I am going to be honest and say I had no idea what to do with this prompt but I took my best stab at it. Caught myself changing it to Harrymort too many times. 
> 
> This is an AU, starts around the time the Golden Trio are out hunting for Horcruxes. I may have fudged Canon a bit, so please bear with me.

Harry could hear the sounds of creatures beckoning him forward—the song of the bubbling brook a short distance away announcing for all that cared to listen of its richness and its fluidity. Harry could count in his mind each time a bird chirped in the darkness, the tenor of the calls different each time but beautiful all the same. He could hear the rustling of the leaves, the faint whimpers emanating from it announcing the life that hid in the corners of the rich dark wood.

“It is beautiful, is it not?”

Harry jumped at the sound of a familiar voice, panic flooding his veins as he turned around to face the last person he would have expected to find in the Forbidden Forest.

Tom Riddle stood before him, the picture of aristocratic grandeur and aloof charm. It was almost comical how different he looked between the bright green of the trees, the shrubbery drowning the boy’s figure in a series of shades of green.

Riddle was dressed entirely in black, making skin that was already rather pale seem almost bone-white underneath the shadows. His hair was perfectly piled at the crown of his head, the single hair curled at his forehead the only one setting itself apart from the rest.  His eyes were black, swallowing all light that attempted to trickle its way inside, a morbid allusion to the slowly darkening nature of the boy.

Riddle looked like the muggle Grim Reaper, if Harry was being honest. It was comical how accurate a description it was considering just who Tom Riddle would grow up to be. At first glance, Voldemort and Riddle may not have looked anything like one another, but Harry, after months of watching the boy, could note the similarities between the Voldemort of the future, and the young Riddle of the now. A beginning and end, an evolution of sorts.

Tom Riddle will sacrifice it all on his quest for immortality and power; his beauty waning until there would be nothing left but the reptilian notes to his skin; a skeletal build to a once powerful body.

And his eyes. Harry was not quite sure when this transition would occur, but he knew it was inevitable once the boy, soon to be a man, would start to split himself one too many times. The black bleeding into red, no longer an abyss, but a reflection of the monster that he truly was on the inside. Riddle would never be capable of ruling through charm and seduction, as he often did now. The warmth of Riddle’s voice lost, and replaced with the icy hiss that resembled more a serpent than a man.

Riddle would rule with fear then, a permanent shift from the sweet promises whispered to his current followers, to promises of pain and agony for those that failed him. Instead of ruling them by instilling respect and worship in the minds of his followers, as Riddle of the now did for the stupid Purebloods, fear and obsession would rule instead.

It was almost pathetic.

At first, when Harry had first realized he had landed himself in the past, he had panicked. Harry recalled the world just blurred at its edges, the familiar warm face of a much younger and colder Dumbledore enough to throw him into a fit. It had taken him days for him to recover from that, his mind rejecting the mere notion that he had somehow landed arse first into a past where Harry would be forced to interact with Riddle.

He had resolved to speak to Dumbledore on the matter, unable to explain how it was that he landed there in the first place, and thus, unable to send himself back. Dumbledore had been cold to him, the twinkle in his eye absent and his tone more to ease Harry’s nerves than an extension of his own sympathy.

It made Harry long for the old man of his future—of the grandfatherly warmth and the odd things the man would say. But Harry did not mention that, having already been warned by the very man himself to avoid telling him tidbits of his future. Dumbledore had been very insistent that Harry avoid any sort of exposure to himself, and Harry understood readily enough that he was an anomaly that should not have been there at all.

Harry had tried to recall the situation that could have led him to the past, but the memories of it were hazy—the edges blurred unlike the vividness of the green swallowing Harry and Riddle in the forest. Harry had tried to remember—to put a date and a name to it, but it would leave him just as immediately as the memory flashed behind his eyelids when first waking. It was incredibly frustrating—knowing but not really knowing. Trapped and unable to do a bloody thing about the situation his own bloody luck must have landed him in.

So Harry shoved all thought of his shoddy situation to the recesses of his mind, focusing instead on a much more urgent issue.

Like why Tom bloody Riddle was even here in the first place. Harry had made sure that no one had followed into the forest. Waiting until Riddle was entirely too occupied with some first years before Harry made his escape from the Slytherin common room. Of course, it was very likely that someone had seen him leave and had informed Riddle of it.

It honestly would not surprise Harry in the least. The snakes did not exactly like Harry, and it was entirely mutual from his end. He was still shocked that the hat had gone against his wishes and forced him into the last place he wanted to be, trapping him in the house of silver and green.

“It is.” Harry responded after the long silence, casting his gaze away from the cold eyes of the young dark lord and back to the surrounding greenery.

It really was beautiful, but it was a shame that Riddle was there with him. Harry had been looking forward to at least having a moment away from the Slytherins and their petty mind games. Here, Harry did not have to play along, or restrain the desire to scream or shout when a Slytherin made a particularly scathing comment.

Harry was free here, even if only for a short moment. But Riddle had ruined that.

“This is perhaps the first time we have ever been alone in the same space.” Harry tensed when he realized the truth of Riddle’s comment. Harry had in fact never been alone with the boy—hoping that he was subtle in his attempts to flee the room whenever the boy entered. Harry had made it his mission to not suffer too long under Riddle’s seemingly all-seeing gazing, feeling too exposed and out of his element with a monster that Harry was entirely unfamiliar with.

Harry understood Voldemort. But Tom Riddle, Harry knew absolutely nothing of.

 Harry may have seen memories of the boy manipulate his way into acquiring knowledge he should not know of, or of the boy lying through his teeth when asked about his activities by Dumbledore, but he did not really _know_ him. The boy was charming—almost uncomfortably so, and Harry knew that. Had heard it in his voice when he announced that Hagrid had brought in an Acromantula to the school. He _knew_ bloody well what Riddle was capable of, but it was the kind of knowledge passed down from another source, there was no true firsthand experience from Harry’s end. Sure, the Diary had been a younger version of Riddle, but he was tainted by the knowledge of Voldemort’s defeat and Harry’s hand in that.

Here, Riddle was in his element and would play the game far better than he had in the Chamber. Harry would see aspects that none of the memories were able to reveal. He had no bloody idea of what to do when in the presence of such a force that was Voldemort, but also was not him; knowing the future that would inevitably come and also understanding that Harry could not blow his own cover.

Hermione had once instilled in him the importance of not interfering with time, and the Dumbledore of this time had affirmed this harsh lesson. Harry was not happy with what that essentially meant, but he knew the consequences.

Riddle was an important figure in history—the boy’s destruction would be the birth of a new monster. Perhaps, Harry’s meddling might even influence time in such a fashion that the outcome of the war would be for the worst.

It was that fear that stayed Harry’s hand when in Riddle’s presence. It was simply better for him to avoid Riddle than to risk shoving his foot in his mouth, and so, Harry did everything in his power to avoid Riddle. Even if it grated him to act so…cowardly. It was the smart thing to do.

It was total bollocks in Harry’s opinion, but he would not risk it all just because it just rubbed him the wrong way to see Riddle ingratiate himself to his peers.

Harry watched the forest for a few moments longer, before begrudgingly turning his attention back to Riddle. Harry watched the way Riddle’s robes billowed in the breeze that filtered through between the trees, the fabric breaking the silence that had fallen between them.

“I hadn’t noticed.” Harry watched him for a longer moment, before deciding he’d much rather look at the trees instead. The trees did not taunt or creep him out, unlike his unwanted visitor. So Harry turned his back to Riddle, feeling every nerve in his body scream at him for doing it but deciding it was for the best. Harry was supposed to be a transfer from private tutoring—another boy orphaned by the war exploding in tiny pockets in Britain. Harry was _supposed_ to like Riddle, to trust the boy, after all, the boy had not done anything suspicious enough around Harry.

It made sense to turn his back on him—only someone that trusted their companion would do that. But Harry did not trust him in the least.

“Do I make you uncomfortable, Harry? I confess that you are the least…accommodating of the students in Slytherin.” Harry did not face Riddle despite the growing temptation in his gut to do so. He forced his body to remain as lax as it could, taking a glance at his hands to make sure that he was not clenching them into fists where he stood.

Harry was on thin ice. He had thought he was being slick, but he supposed that Riddle at some point would inevitably catch wind of his dilatory and avoidance tactics. Bollocks, he thought he was doing pretty well too.

“N-no, of course not.” Harry tried to appease, his heart beating rapidly when he heard movement come from directly behind him. Harry sincerely hoped the boy would not try anything now, it would be rather inconvenient if Harry revealed too much.

Dumbledore had warned him enough as it was, he did not need to hear Hermione’s imaginary voice in his mind telling him to behave too.

Harry turned to look at what had caused the sound, the shifting of grass and of leaves rustling in the wind, and froze at the sight of Riddle leaning in close to him. He was so close that if Harry breathed too hard his chest might brush against Riddle’s.

Didn’t Riddle _hate_ physical touch? Hell, didn’t the man loath to be in the presence of anyone but his own reflection?

It was strange, and so very unnerving that Harry could not help taking a step back, watching how Riddle followed his motions, their chests brushing for a split second, before Harry managed to outpace him. Riddle was still too close, but it was better than the sliver of space they had had earlier.

Harry was livid and anxious, the adrenaline coursing through his veins giving way to the familiar whisper of unease that he only felt when around Riddle. He wasn’t sure if he was masking his disgust well enough now, but he threw all care to the wind when Riddle suddenly smiled at him as if he had just had the most delightful idea.

It was malicious, the way the smile transformed angelic features to that of a cherubic demon in an instant. Harry had never seen the boy give anyone that face before, and it was with sick realization that Harry just _knew_ Riddle suspected something.

“Oh, but I _do_. You look about ready to flee at any moment’s notice.”

“I do not!” Harry denied, stubbornly holding still despite all the instincts in his gut screaming for him to move. To do that would be to confirm Riddle’s own assessment, and Harry would not give him that satisfaction.

Riddle chuckled, the sound rich with humor and mirth despite Harry’s growing look of anger and discomfort. “You’re a terrible liar, Harry.”

Harry sputtered at that. Were they on first name basis now?

“Well, that’s all well and good, but that doesn’t explain what you are even doing here.” Harry lifted his chin, watching the way Riddle’s eyes seemed to glitter more brightly with amusement at Harry’s show of bravery. This was the most emotion Harry had ever recalled seeing from the boy since having landed a half-century into the past.

It downright creepy.

The seconds trickled slowly without Riddle speaking a word, the expression on the boy’s face one of thoughtfulness. Harry was just about ready to ask again, before the boy released a breath Harry had not realized Riddle was holding.

“Time is a fickle thing, don’t you agree? Almost as beautiful as the leaves flitting above our heads.” Harry was confused for only a short second before he felt horror seize him entirely when he noticed implication hanging heavily in Riddle’s words.

_Time._

Harry took a hasty step back, wincing at the crunching sound the dry leaves made as he moved. He did not want to seem as if were entirely unsettled, but there was no helping the fact that Harry was in deep trouble.

Riddle never spoke without meticulous consideration; a trait unremarkably different from Harry. For all of Harry’s scathing comments, reckless as they were, Riddle’s were a carefully crafted blade, made to sever flesh from fat; muscle easily yielding beneath the strength of Riddle’s sharp tongue. Riddle was deliberate, the manipulation of such a subtle nature that the victim hardly knew they were being manipulated at all.

It was easy for Harry to assume the worst from the mention of “time.” It was such a bizarre comparison to the natural grandeur of this forest.

“Ah, yeah but you still haven’t answered my question.” Harry finally responded. He was tempted to flee, not so much because he was frightened at what could happen, but more concerned that he’d completely blow his cover and do some irreparable harm to the future. He could hear the warnings in the back of his mind whispering and begging him to not draw any more attention than he already had.

Harry could behave. Harry _had_ to behave. Even if he didn’t like it in the least.

“For entirely the same reasons you are here.”

Harry watched the way Riddle’s lips formed the words, noting the ease that the lie left his lips. It was just easy for Harry to assume that everything the boy said was a lie. Harry was already aware that even if he had more intimate knowledge than most about the dark lord, that Harry still could not read him.

It was a wonder how Riddle did not believe his own lies, the amount of them and the sincerity of each one entirely too real. It was too bloody convincing.

“You don’t strike me as the kind to go off wandering into forests, Riddle.” Harry hedged, furrowing his brows when Riddle’s face suddenly froze for a second, before a slow smile creeped up his lips.

Harry pictured a beast consuming its prey in that split second.

“And what sort is it that, _Harry_?” Riddle leaned closer to him, as if he were unable to stay away. It forced Harry to take another few steps back, unsure of what it was that the boy wanted now. None of this conversation was making any sense to him.

Harry suspected that Riddle knew something; that Riddle came out here to finally get some answers to the mystery Harry had cloaked himself in since arriving. But it seemed that Riddle had a completely different plan in mind, and Harry was at a loss at what it was.

“You’re a bit too…graceful for all this. You’re a shadow while everything here is bright and alive.” _You’re death_. Harry supplied, noting with immense relief that Riddle had stopped leaning towards him. But Harry was not going to admit that. Especially not when he was still alone with a much saner version of the dark lord.

Merlin, this was all just too unreal. He could not believe this was his life.

“That’s quite the compliment.” Harry did not think it was, not really. He’d practically called the boy death, which again, was not far from the truth. “Tell me, do you know about the Fae?”

The fae? Harry had never heard of something like that before. What in Merlin’s name did that have to do with anything?

“The Fae are considered to have absolute dominion of the earth, their grace rivaled only by the resplendence of their cities.” Riddle started, his voice soft and light despite the tenseness in the air.

“They dwell in the evergreen, immortal and beautiful—“of course, Harry almost scoffed. Riddle would know all there was to know about anything that could yield an answer to immortality. No stone left unturned, after all. Even if Riddle could have done better without splitting his soul one too many times.

“—but cruel to those that interest them.” Harry swallowed at how Riddle’s eyes seemed to burn into his own, something in the way Riddle explained the creatures making Harry more than a bit uncomfortable.

“You see, they are quite selfish, even malicious depending on who one asks.” Harry watched the way Riddle’s adams-apple bobbed as he spoke, disturbed by what he had glimpsed in Riddle’s eyes earlier. There was a hunger in them that reminded Harry of the same look the diary had given him before Harry had destroyed it. It made the hairs on his arms stand on end, and he just could not bear to look any longer. “I find the sentiment quite understandable, I am almost…sympathetic to their plight.”

“I don’t understand why you are telling me this.” Harry eyed the way Riddle leaned into him once more, closing the gap between them step by single step, but he held his ground. He was tired of running away like some scared kitten, he may not have been put in Gryffindor this time, but he was most definitely a lion. “What do the Fae have to do with all this? Is that why you are actually here?” Harry focused on the way Riddle’s lips quirked into a smile, the way his eyes caught Harry’s and held them with an ease that Harry should have been disturbed by. Harry felt trapped in a way, unsurprised when Riddle was suddenly enveloping Harry completely with his magic.

It was heavy; so potent that it felt like Riddle was physically restraining Harry with the power of it alone.

“The Fae come without warning. Following the scent of a human playing in their territory. Sometimes it is a child that wanders in. But there are moments, where it is an adult instead, just as curious of a world they know little of.” Riddle was all Harry could see, awed by the way Riddle’s voice wove a tale of creatures hidden in the trees, unsure of when the fear in his gut had dissipated into this strange emotion. Riddle’s voice was no louder than a whisper, but there was just something _there_. Harry could not put his finger on it—a message written between the spaces of each uttered word.

“They beckon for the human with their calls, their voices sweet and enchanting to the ears of their victim.” Harry felt something coil in his stomach as Riddle continued to speak, but he could not find it in himself to stop listening to the story. Harry was oddly compelled by it, even if it was a monster sharing it.

 “They bring the human to their camp, share with him their stories and their favorite games. The human is wary at first of them, but over time, the human starts to grow comfortable with the strange creatures he had befriended in the forest. This trust entirely misplaced.” Harry sighed when Riddle paused from the tale, awed and horrified at how relaxed he suddenly felt.

Harry was afraid for himself then, unsure of when exactly Riddle had spelled him. Wondering what _spell_ could have done this to him in the first place. Riddle had not waved a wand, had not spoken any incantation.

The sensations of his limbs felt like what he would imagine rubber felt like. Stretchy and lax.

“And once the human has grown comfortable enough, the Fae he had met would come before him with a goblet and a fruit. The scent wafting from both the fruit and the goblet unlike anything the human has ever encountered before.” Harry shivered at the darkness that settled in Riddle’s tone, closing his eyes when Riddle smirked up at him, the same hunger in them burning much more obviously now.

Riddle was himself here. No mask or show put on for Harry to see.

“The human then drinks from the goblet, growing drunk with each sip he takes. Do you know what happens next, Harry?” Harry shook his head no, unwilling to answer. His insides felt tight with worry, horrified when Riddle finally closed the space between them, the sensation alone forcing Harry to open his eyes.

Riddle’s lips pressed against Harry’s ear to whisper the rest of the tale.

“The moment the boy takes a bite of the fruit, consumed by the haze of the drink supplied by his most generous hosts, he seals his fate. Trapped, forever in their company. A slave to their demands, death unable to release him from the imprisonment crafted by these wily beings.”

Harry’s breaths came short, his lungs unable to quite gather the oxygen he needed as he began to panic. Horror overtaking curiosity, but doing nothing to jump start his body into action.

What had Riddle done to him!?

“You see, Harry. You made a rather poor decision coming out here, not only making it easy for me to follow you, but to make what needs to be done, possible.” Harry swallowed when Riddle stepped back to take in the look of fear in Harry’s bright green eyes; the hue of them very fitting in the surrounding earth around them.

“I _know_ you are not from this time. You were clever enough to hide this knowledge from me for a time, but it seems, not clever enough to escape while you still had the chance.” Riddle pressed his fingers against Harry’s scar, the sensation of it drawing an unwilling gasp from Harry.

The scar tingled almost as if recognizing Riddle, a strange elation and hunger curling its way into Harry’s mind. “Similar to how the Fae bind their prey through their consumption of fae fruit, you and I seem to be bonded just as tightly. I am curious, what piece of me did you consume to bind us this tightly?”

“No, I—!” Harry fought against the invisible power restraining him, noting with dismay how his body refused to comply with his demands. He needed to _move_. He needed to do _something_.

Anything.

“Tell me Harry, who were you in my future? Were you someone so important to my future self that you were readily given a piece of myself?” Riddle sounded eager, no longer bothering to hide his emotions as he stared deeply into Harry’s own wide eyes.

Harry closed them quickly, suddenly recalling that Riddle was a master at legilimancy in the future. He may not be one now, but with how shoddy of an occulmens Harry was, it would be easy for Riddle to delve into Harry’s thoughts if he wasn’t careful.

“I-I don’t know what you are talking about!” And Harry sincerely didn’t. Bonds? Harry could not recall any instance in his life where he and Voldemort had become bonded. Perhaps the prophecy? But no, that did not make any sense when the prophecy did not even exist yet. The blood? Harry did have his blood unwillingly taken when Voldemort was being revived.

But no, that did not make much sense to him either. The spell made it so Voldemort could override the strong magic Harry’s mum had used, it didn’t _create_ a bond.

“…I see that you are already familiar with my abilities. Were you an ally? No, that does not seem quite correct with how much you fear me.” Harry could hear Riddle speak above him, his voice pensive as Harry fought the pressure restraining him.

Harry struggled against his bonds, a grim determination settling into him because Riddle _could not_ learn about his future. Harry could not risk his life here when they had yet to defeat Voldemort. Britain was counting on him, he could not fail them now when there was such a hefty price hanging over them.

Riddle hummed above him before pressing his fingers once more to Harry’s scar, the fear swept up immediately by a warmth that Harry had never felt before. He was familiar with pain, of the scar weeping red tears when Voldemort spoke into his mind or shared visions in Harry’s sleep. But this warmth was unlike anything Harry ever experienced before. It was actually _pleasant._

“ ** _Tell me_**.” Riddle hissed in parseltongue, the sound making something within Harry purr pleasantly despite how wrong the emotion was. Harry most definitely _did not_ feel safe in Riddle’s presence. Something was wrong, and Harry felt the familiar warmth coax him into opening his lips against his will.

The sound that left him did not sound like Harry at all.

“ ** _He is your enemy. Your future self had made this boy an unwilling vessel to a piece of his soul. Made a fool by a Seer that knew little of her craft_**.” It was something from within Harry that spoke, horror mounting with each pressing second when it continued to speak.

“ ** _His blood was what reanimated you after you destroyed yourself. The boy’s face caked in dried mud and grass as he watched you rise from the cauldron. His arm bleeding profusely as he wished for you to drown._** _”_

Harry was trembling, the desire to bite his tongue strong, but apparently, not strong enough to silence the sentient being within from speaking. “ ** _Your future self  lost it all in his avarice, losing piece by piece of his sanity as he split his soul into pieces. It allowed for the boy to break us, your future self blind_** _.”_

Harry could hear the way Riddle’s breath caught at that, but Harry did not bother to open his eyes. Even if it was useless now to hide the secrets, he took comfort in the fact he did not have to look at the boy’s face.

“ ** _Treasure him. He is the key_** _.”_

And then the presence was gone, freeing Harry completely from Riddle’s influence. Harry scrambled back as fast he could, relief mounting with each foot of space he created between himself and Riddle.

Riddle was frozen completely where he stood, his face utterly blank as he stared in Harry’s direction. There was a long silence between them, broken only by Harry’s harsh pants. Riddle did not move at all despite the speed with which Harry continued to back away.

It was after a long silence that Harry was finally convinced that Riddle was not going to follow. He turned away from the boy, ignoring the burning at his back as he rushed into the dark space between the trees. Harry _needed_ to get away. He doubted he could maintain his composure any longer after having his world completely twisted on its head.

_I am a bloody horcrux._

Harry thought he was going to be sick, the churning in his stomach the only warning he had before he had to stop and choke out what he had had for lunch from his stomach.

_Oh merlin, I’m…_

Harry felt hot tears trickle down his cheeks, but he ignored them in favor of getting as far away as he possibly could from Riddle. Rising from where he had bent over to puke his guts out, and stumbling over twigs and tree roots over the uneven path he had taken.

He wanted to scream his lungs out, but instead, he laughed because he could do little else in his predicament. He laughed, the sound of it making him sound absolutely mad but it did not deter Harry in the least.

_I am have a piece of him inside him. This is just…_

He laughed harder than before, the panic drowning his senses as he felt trees snag at his hair and robes, the sharp sting of it not enough to rouse him from the hysteria mounting with each second.

He heard a faint sound behind him, but he did not care to listen to it. Not wanting to face the reality of just how screwed up this all was—

 _It is almost fitting_ , Harry imagined Riddle whisper to him when they would inevitably find themselves alone in the Slytherin common room in the near future. Harry would be trapped and afraid, rebellious and unrestrained as he bit and clawed at the boy, after recovering from the shock he had experienced in their encounter in the Forbidden Forest. Defiant to his last breath until Riddle would finally force him against the wall, his wand pressing harshly to Harry’s throat. Harry could imagine the fear he would feel in that precise moment, unsure of what the boy was planning but knowing that it would be dangerous.

 _When I told you that story Harry, I never thought it would be quite so pertinent to us both,_ Harry imagined the words in his mind, the sound of it enough to force another laugh from Harry as he ran. Of course, Harry could not escape the monster, even in his own head.

Never in his own head.

Riddle’s voice sounded soft and gentle in Harry’s mind, the imaginary scenario between them not lending itself to much violence from Riddle’s end. Riddle had already won this battle, the boy would feel no need to speak harshly when he was just so _pleased._ The sound of Riddle’s voice so very unlike the creature he would become.

Oh Merlin, please help him.

 _A bond that even death cannot extinguish_ ¸ Riddle would say and Harry would snarl in denial and rage. Choosing to ignore the truth of his words.

Fitting. That’s what this all was.

It hardly mattered that Harry had run, he doubted that distance could smother this.

_Not even death will separate us._

Harry would find a way.


	6. Reliquary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: T
> 
> Warnings: General creepiness, violence
> 
> Prompt: Harrymort + Reliquary

Harrymort + Reliquary

 

The silence around him was pervasive—his own ears ringing with the absence of sound as he stood before his parents’ grave. It was cold outside, but he didn’t pay the chill any mind as he tried to make sense of what his own life had become. The fading letters of his parents’ names on stone the only thing grounding him to this reality.

He should have never come here at all, but here he was, standing in the last place he should have been.

But he could not bear to spend another minute in the tent—Ron’s absence was like a physical blow to his gut, and Hermione’s sorrow-ridden eyes a painful reminder of what they had lost. He did not want to stomach another second knowing that the trio had suddenly become a duo, all because the locket currently burning into his ribs, had poisoned Ron’s mind.

Harry tried not to hold it against Ron—he knew what it was like. He practically lived it every day without having the trinket to keep him company. His own mind was its own prison—its own unbearable venom rotting him from the inside out.

But Ron at least could remove the burden. For Harry, there was no removing it. Voldemort’s presence was a sickness that burrowed itself deep into his soul; nothing short of removing his own flesh from his bones could bring Harry the relief he wanted.

Harry did not know how long he had been out there, but when he saw the last sliver of sunlight bleed into the earth, he knew it was time for him to leave. Hermione knew he had gone, but had promised her that he would return before night fell; the only reason she had let him go in the first place. Aside from the fact he may not have been entirely genuine about where exactly he was going.

 He exhaled deeply, gathering his resolve for the bleakness that awaited him in the tent, before clutching his invisibility cloak more tightly around him.

He headed for the opening at the far end of the graveyard, his footsteps loud despite all his efforts to be silent. The place may have seemed empty—abandoned, by anyone else that stumbled upon it. But Harry knew better than to trust this.

Voldemort thrived in the shadows—his magic an abyss that swallowed all light that dared to shine too closely.

It would honestly not come as a surprise to see Death Eaters roaming this town. Everyone knew about Harry’s tragic past and his strong feelings for the parents that were stolen from him. If Voldemort knew Harry as well as the man claimed to, then he would definitely have this place riddled with troops.

It was very fortunate that Harry had an invisibility cloak. It certainly came in handy.

He paused when he noticed something glimmer to his right—the glow of light incandescent underneath the black of the sky above him. He turned to it, curious by what the light could be.

What he saw was a ruined chapel a short distance away.

Harry could see where the wooden roof had fallen into itself, where the door had splintered open from years of little care. But what he could see most clearly from where he stood was the bright light—its power coming from somewhere inside the edifice.

He stepped toward the chapel before he thought to stop himself. He should have been more suspicious, wearier of this temptation that hid behind its solid stone walls.

And normally, he would have been a little more careful.

But what harm could this do? He was safely hidden beneath his invisibility cloak, polyjuiced for good measure, and his wand firmly tucked between his fingers. He was prepared—mindful of the fact that if he wanted to come out of this alive that he would do well to be ready for anything that came his way.

This was as Hermione approved as it could get without actually acquiring her seal of approval. And although he wanted to be guilty for deceiving her into thinking he was simply taking a stroll through the forest rather than staring at his parents’ graves in Godric’s Hollow, he wasn’t. He needed this moment of respite, to gather his senses before they returned to the onerous task of destroying the trinket wrapped around his neck.

He was so caught in his musings that he had not realized he was a foot away from the rotting doors until the smell of it overcame his senses. It smelled of rotten wood and death—the pungent smell enough to make Harry’s lips quirk into a grimace.

He had expected rot—the bloody chapel looked ready to cave in at any second. But the smell of death caught him by surprise entirely. It smelled like the rats that would find their way into the nooks of the Dursley’s home, the creatures poisoned and dying in a place where no one could remove them.

He wondered if someone had died in there recently, if someone had come in and never returned to the world of the living.

The thought should have horrified him, should have propelled him out of the chapel post haste. And he wanted to, he truly did. But the light was glowing faintly from somewhere inside, so small that Harry had to squint through the shadows in the building to make it out. He had already come this far—it would be a bit of a waste if he backed off now.

It just sucked bollocks that it smelled so bad.

Harry steeled himself, taking in as much clean air as he could through his lungs, before stepping inside. He didn’t notice how tightly his fingers were clutching his wand—his knuckles white from the pressure.

The first thing he noticed when he entered was how small the space was. The nave was so narrow that it was only just big enough to fit a person. The benches were otherwise pressed against the walls to Harry’s left and right, surprisingly sturdy despite the abused state of the actual building.

The windows at either end of the building allowed moonlight to trickle inside, casting the place in a supernatural glow that likely would frighten any that had the misfortune of coming in here.

He definitely felt out of place.

It was creepy, the way the moon cast shadows over the benches. It made the room seem smaller than it already was—the shadows suffocating and oppressive as he stopped in front of the short nave to eye the altar at the end of it.

It was perhaps the nicest part of the place. The only area of the chapel that seemed to be untouched by time—the cloth at the table pristine as if someone had recently laid it on the table.

It looked more a sacrificial table than a place where peons would get on their knees to pray. It made Harry shift with discomfort at the possibility that someone else could be there with him, hidden within the thick shadows of the room. It made the stench of the room seem more reasonable—the likelihood that someone may have _actually_ killed people air, more than possible.

It made his stomach turn.

He stepped carefully inside, looking around for the glow he had seen earlier when he had stood outside the doors. But there was no glow—no filtering light except for the moonlight at either side of him.

It made something like apprehension curl in his stomach, the thought that perhaps he had been lured inside setting his heart aflutter. He was at the center of the chapel, but he was tempted to just turn back—to turn his arse around and leave from where he had come.

But he did not, despite the whispers of unease begging him to. He didn’t despite the heat that burned him through the layers of his clothes—the locket seeming to come to life at that precise second.

It never bode well when the locket saw fit to come alive, and Harry could practically sense that shit was about to hit the fan.

“Harry Potter.” Harry jumped, stumbling in the dark to make out just who had called his name in the small space. He did not see anything at first, the shadows by the altar so thick that it would only make sense that he’d miss the shape of a person.

Harry did not say a word, choosing instead to back further away from the room to escape. The locket was burning something fierce, but he did not focus on the trinket, more caught up with the fact this person knew he was there, and _knew_ who he was.

He still felt the invisibility cloak wrapped firmly around himself, so it couldn’t be that he had somehow lost the cloak when he had come inside.

Something strange was going on, and Harry wanted no part of it.

 “It is quite the surprise to see you so _close_ to home.” The voice hissed, the familiarity of the tone making dread lodge in his throat.

 _It couldn’t be_ —

“But it can be. You came here all on your own without a fuss.” Harry flinched at the iciness of his tone, the amusement there enough to have him stepping further back. He needed to get _out_. Somehow Voldemort was there in the dark with him—had lured him in like some stupid first year.

Harry could not quite make out the monster from the shadows, but there was no mistaking Voldemort’s voice. He did not need to move from he stood in the shadows, for Harry to know. The only saving grace Harry had was the fact that he had slowly inched closer to the entrance he had come in through. If he made a break for it, he was sure he would have enough time to get out.

He thought to apparate straight away, but he could feel the tingle of anti-apparation wards clinging to the stone walls. So he held his wand out instead, pointing at the outline of Voldemort’s body in the shadows.

“Leaving so soon? But you’ve only just arrived.” Voldemort crooned and Harry flinched when he hit a barrier he was _sure_ had not been there when he walked in earlier. He turned his attention momentarily to glimpse at what could be blocking his path, noting with dread that there was no longer a door to come through.

Voldemort had laid down a solid stone wall where the rotting doors used to be.

_Shit._

“And you’ve even brought company. My my, I have not felt its magic in _years_.” Harry hissed when the locket suddenly became so hot that it scalded him through his shirt. He tried to remove it, but the damn thing refused to budge.

Each time he tried to slip the thing over his head, it was as if some invisible force kept it from going no further than above his chin.

He huffed angrily, upset at _himself_ for being so stupid to chase after a light he didn’t know the origins of. He _knew_ better. He should have known better than the pursue it—sod it—he should have known better than to come to Godric’s Hollow at all.

It was a piss poor decision from his part, one that he was regretting immensely with each passing second as the man huffed out a short laugh at his expense.

It was high—the pitch of it enough to make Harry’s skin crawl.

“Why don’t you come join me, Harry? It really has been a long time since we have been…face to face.” Harry would rather be eaten by the Basilik than do what the man wanted.

Harry was still, taking in silent breaths as he turned his attention to the open windows at either side of him. Odds were that Voldemort had sealed those too, but Harry at least had to try. He moved slowly despite the heavy weight of Voldemort’s magic in the air, the fact such magical power was so easily hidden away a testament to the power that Voldemort held within his skeletal frame.

It was terrifying how Harry had not noticed it at all when he had first come in—it was like a tsunami preparing to strike a defenseless village. He should have at least felt something, noticed something was amiss before he had stupidly walked into the chapel. But there was no helping things now.

Harry was almost to the window before he felt the air shifted around him—the rippling of Voldemort’s magic the only warning he had before he was flung from the window, his grip slipping from his wand. He tried to reach for it, but he was flying so fast his cloak and glasses fell away too, lost in the dark.

He cried out when he landed harshly on the altar, his back bursting with shocks of pain.

Harry could barely see in front of him, his poor vision making the once clear outline of Voldemort’s body in the dark, a blur. The fact he could not see Voldemort made fear twist into his gut, his body twisting along with it in his efforts to break away from the powerful force that pinned him to the altar. He could feel each individual groove of the wood on his back, surprised and afraid at how it did not break from the impact.

It should have broken—crumpled to pieces under the weight of his own body and Voldemort’s power when he had landed. It made Harry suspicious—unsure and wary of the fact that as he had noted earlier, the table seemed to be the only thing pristine in the entire ruined chapel.

“Ah, so you have noticed.” Voldemort stated, before stepping out from the shadows, the red of his eyes and the pallor of his skin the only thing Harry could really make out without his glasses. It was both a blessing and a curse—he wasn’t sure if he wanted to be blinded or see what was coming.

Harry prepared himself for the worst, struggling despite the fruitlessness of the endeavor. He wished more than ever that he had his wand—his fingers itching for the familiar wood, settling for the cloth instead.

“It is a special moment, you see.” Voldemort stepped towards the altar, his tall frame making him seem more imposing than he already was already. Harry sneered at him, unwilling to be cowed by Voldemort’s presence.

“Special? Hardly.” Harry snarled when Voldemort finally stopped beside him, a predatory grin on his face as he took in the sight of Harry pinned onto the altar. It chilled Harry to the bone, but he did not let it show. He could not afford to show weakness when this moment was life or death—death more likely, since he wand was god knows where, and Voldemort had him pressed so hard into the table that he could not move a finger.

“You have returned that which had been stolen from me. And you have offered yourself, it is only fitting that you lay where muggles have stood on their knees to beg.” Harry swallowed when the dark lord reached out, his fingers pressing to Harry’s neck. They were cold, what Harry could imagine death felt like as they traced the tendon at the side of his neck before curling around the golden chain of the locket.

It heated up suddenly and Harry cried out, scalded through his shirt. He writhed as it pulsed a steady heat, a warmth spreading around him as he tried to fight the teeth-clenching agony. It felt like the locket was eating through his chest—an acid spreading from his ribs and through different networks of nerves in his frame.

 _Merlin_.

He screamed again when the warmth became an inferno the longer the seconds progressed—he writhed and struggled, no longer trying to escape his confinement but trying to get Voldemort to stop. His touch was agony, the scar on his forehead now burning something fierce as he tried to make sense of what the bloody fuck was going on.

He was dizzy, his vision black at the edges.

He felt like he was about to pass out, but Voldemort, seeming to notice this, removed his hand from Harry’s throat. The burning immediately stopped, but the Locket still pulsed. A reminder of the pain that he had suffered and would suffer again.

“ _Monster_.” Harry hissed, and Voldemort simply rose a hairless brow at him. The dark lord considered him for a moment, pressing the same fingers that had touched his neck seconds earlier under his chin. He looked oddly human in that instance, so human in fact that Harry tried not to think on the gesture. He was perturbed at the fact he was still alive—shocked in fact that Voldemort had even stopped torturing him at all.

“And you are the repository for the soul of a _monster_ , Harry. You carry deep within those weak bones, in that delicate skin, a piece of my soul.” Harry stiffened, his shock eliciting another laugh from the man over him.

_What?_

“You’re lying.” Harry denied without consideration. He did not care that Voldemort had stopped laughing and had now crowded closer to him. It just couldn’t be true—he had to be speaking of the locket he wore on his chest.

There was simply no way that Harry had—

Harry swallowed down his bile when Voldemort again reached for his neck, his touch deceptively soft on his skin. If he wasn’t sure he’d choke on his vomit, he would have expelled the mushrooms soup he had eaten with Hermione earlier that afternoon.

“Oh? Then why do you hear my thoughts as if they were your own? See the world as I see it? _Feel_ as I feel, Harry?” Voldemort purred, and Harry blanched at the implication.

Why did he have this connection with the dark lord that no one had?

The horcrux on his chest burned up once more, before Harry felt another pressure push him further into the altar by his shoulders.

The pressure felt oddly like—

“Are you frightened, Harry Potter? To know that you carry a piece of me inside you? That the reason you could feel pieces of me in this world is because you—“ Harry gasped when the fingers on his shoulders clenched, fear slicing through him as Voldemort watched him, his face twisting into an expression Harry could not understand.

The new hands were warm—a familiar heat burning through his shirt and into his flesh. He hissed, unable to turn his gaze away from Voldemort, who had stopped caressing his throat, and had stepped back to watch him.

“carry a piece of my soul.” Voldemort whispered, the presence above him letting out a pleased hum at Harry’s sharp gasp.

The tenor of that hum sounded familiar—a memory tugging at his mind, but he refused to acknowledge it. He didn’t want to know, didn’t want to be _know_ that—

“ _I have seen your heart, Harry._ ” Harry trembled, a voice he had only ever heard in memories speaking above him. He opened his mouth to respond, trying to swallow down his mounting horror as realization washed over him.

“No, I-“ Harry tried, but the words died as soon as they had come. Distracted by the fingers on his shoulders, shaking when they loosened their brutal grip on his shoulders to slip into his wild hair.

 “ _You are mine_.” The voice crooned, the fingers in his hair gentle as they teased at the wisps near his ears.

“ _I have seen your dreams_.” Harry tried not to look as frightened as he felt, but he knew he had failed miserably when the monstrous version of Voldemort smiled at him, his thin lips spread taut.

It was too much to take in at once.

“ _Do you not see, Harry? You were never alone. You have always had me, nestled deep into your beating heart.”_ Harry opened his mouth to protest, to deny and get the man to bloody _shut up_. But Voldemort’s hand suddenly snapped forward, seeming to know that Harry was about to speak, before digging his fingers harshly into Harry’s chin.

It made speech completely impossible.

“I have seen your _fears._ I have seen Dementors giving you the kiss, ripping our _soul_ straight from your mouth. I have seen your fingers clenched so tightly they are white with your despair, your face contorted into the sweetest of pain at the end of my wand.” Harry flinched when Voldemort hissed the word soul, further crystalizing the reality that he had a monster living inside him.

He was a bloody Horcrux.

Harry spat then, his spit missing the man’s face entirely, but the action made him feel braver. Like he wasn’t breaking from the reality of the situation.

“Our little _Horcrux_.” Voldemort’s voice was reverent, as if he could hardly contain his glee. The other Voldemort—another memory of Tom Riddle—simply ran his fingers through his hair as if he were some pet, a chuckle the sound in the silence of the room.

Harry wanted to feel sick, the reality that he was laying out before them like some sacrifice, spreading panic through him like wildfire.

“You will want for nothing.” Voldemort’s touch was ice cold, a chill spreading through from where his fingers gripped tightly on his chin. “ _You will be cherished, as things that belong to me are._ ” Riddle spoke from behind him, his voice silky as his fingers scratched at Harry’s scalp, a pleasant feeling spreading through him.

He was utterly horrified.

“Never to be touched by the fingers of death.” But death was already touching him, Harry wanted to argue. Death was standing before him in the atrophied church, his power overwhelming in the dark.

“I have seen _you_ , and you are _mine._ ”

Voldemort’s magic washed through him, and the blackness at the corners of his eyes engulfed him completely.

He fought viciously against him, hanging tightly to his own magic to keep himself awake. To keep himself _aware._

But it was too much, spreading too fast, and then he was adrift. The memory of Hermione’s haunted face the last thing he recalled before he saw no more.


	7. Hopeless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Harrymort + Hopeless
> 
> Warnings: Canon-Typical Violence, Character death, Blood
> 
> I hope you enjoy :) I didn't get to expand this despite wanting to (the muse did not want to cooperate).

Harry saw Bellatrix launch the blade, malice glittering within her dark eyes as she moved. Harry didn’t hesitate then, practically throwing himself into the knife aimed directly for Dobby’s chest. He didn’t care that he had ripped himself from Dobby’s grip as he did; didn’t care that Hermione and Ron were screaming for him to stop as he stepped out from in front of them.

All he could see was the knife coming their way, and he did not think at all about the consequences.

The knife slashed him, the hot metal burning past his shoulder as he tried to deflect it. But he had miscalculated the direction that it was coming from, his sacrifice for naught when Dobby was struck by the blade before the elf could apparate Ron and Hermione away; the elf’s eyes wide in shock.

Harry was horrified, unable to contain his cry, as he turned in his attempt to catch Dobby as he fell. However, before he could, he felt the familiar sensation of magic washing through him, freezing him entirely in place. He jerked and shouted to be released, to at least give Dobby the respect he deserved.

“Let go of me!” He was desperate, his throat raw from shouting off the top of his lungs.

But the spell was too strong to overcome.

“H-Harry Potter...” Dobby whispered, his hand reaching out for Harry despite the blade sitting perfectly between his ribs. Harry didn’t realize he was crying until he felt his throat lock up, a pressure so choking that he thought he might pass out. His cheeks were wet with his tears, but he paid the blurriness of his vision little mind.

All he could think about was getting to Dobby.

Harry did not register the moment Hermione was pinned to the marble floor, her hair wild with distress and panic as she tried to fight against a crazy Bellatrix Lestrange, consumed entirely by the torrent of his emotions. He didn’t even notice when Ron was also pinned to the floor at her side; his body falling far more easily to the ground. There was no struggle coming from the ginger-haired boy, his side oddly silent. If the situation had not been as grim as it was, Harry might have even found it comical how vastly different both Lucius and Bellatrix appeared next to one another.

Bellatrix Lestrange was wild, her body practically sitting atop of Hermione’s back when Harry finally ripped his gaze away from Dobby’s unseeing eyes, immensely proud, at how Hermione bucked and scratched at the pale witch above her. Hermione twisted and jerked beneath Bellatrix, her eyes glittering with rage despite glee apparent in Bellatrix’s black eyes. It was almost painful to listen to the way Bellatrix laughed as she stepped on Hermione’s fingers, her voice reviving a hatred Harry thought he’d buried back at the Ministry.

It was overwhelming the way the emotion coiled around him, the way it settled into his bones like muscle and flesh. He resisted the black—horrified at the fact that he was feeling this again. That this powerful hatred was growing stronger and stronger with every second Harry watched Bellatrix beat Hermione down with her heeled boots. As if Hermione did not warrant anything more than the bottom of her shoes.

Hermione did not scream, but he could hear each time a blow hit her skin, the sound of Hermione’s ragged breath enough indication that she was in immense pain but refusing to give them the satisfaction of hearing her pained cries. The sound of slap hitting leather rang throughout the room, and Harry restrained the ire that wanted to overtake him then. It wouldn’t be any help to Hermione if he lost control.

When Harry turned his gaze to Ron, he noted immediately how strangely still the ginger was, staring almost unseeingly to the ground beneath him. His skin looked waxy underneath the lights in the expansive room, his hair matted and knotted. Ron looked horrid.

If Harry did not know any better, he would have thought he was de—

“Harry Potter.” And all thought of Ron fled his mind in that instant, the sound of Voldemort’s hiss enough to make gooseflesh rise from his skin.

“At last, the man of the hour has arrived.” Voldemort sounded amused, but Harry did not let the lightness to his tone deceive him. The man was absolutely mad—in the same breath that he could make a charming joke, he could cast the killing curse.

“With guests, no less.” Harry tried to make sense of it, unsure of what to expect when the dark lord was standing at an unknown distance behind him. “It seems one of them did not survive the journey, such a pity.” Voldemort laughed.

Several seconds past before the realization smacked Harry in the face. Horror and sorrow completely overtaking him when he caught sight of Lucius’s grinning face.

The blonde kicked at Ron, and the ginger-haired boy did not stir. His eyes were wide open, but there was no awareness of the world around him.

Ron was dead.

“My Lord.” Bellatrix breathed out reverently from the other side of the room, merely a few feet from where Harry himself was standing, her boot pushing into Hermione’s back as she did. She bowed lowly for her lord, her foot digging into Hermione’s back as she did.

Harry saw red.

“ _I’ll kill you_.” Harry roared, unable to contain his rage as he struggled within his bindings. He felt his magic coil around him like a protective shell, but it did nothing to free him from the spell. He was standing still, his mind heavy with the weight of what he’d just lost.

Bellatrix had killed Dobby—cut him down before he could successfully get them out. And just as everything had become complete chaos, Lucius had...Harry could not make sense of it.

Ron was _dead._

Harry felt like a piece of him had died along with him.

“ _Avada—_ “ But Harry could not finish, the words dying in his throat.

Harry’s neck prickled when he felt familiar magic wash through him—a potent darkness that revealed just who was there with them. He fought back the bile that threatened to come up his throat.

“You have to _mean_ it, Harry. Is your hatred enough to fuel the intent required?” Harry shuddered when he felt a warm body press into his back, reminding him faintly of when Voldemort had tried to possess him back in the Ministry fifth year.

“Do you have what it takes, Harry? You failed to curse my most faithful servant before. Do you think you can punish Lucius for what it is that he has done?” Voldemort’s voice was a purr, and Harry could not mask his revulsion when he felt something press into his hands.

It was smooth and thin—

Harry could hardly believe it when he felt his magic spark from the contact. Voldemort had given him a bloody wand!

“Do you want to know what Lucius was thinking when he killed him, Harry?” Harry’s throat felt dry as Voldemort continued to speak, his touch lingering despite placing the wand in his hand. “I could tell you…”

Harry was overwhelmed with his need to _know_ ¸ the rage thrumming through his veins acidic as he watched Lucius’s face twist into the familiar Malfoy sneer. Harry wanted to blast it off his face—to punish him for what he had done to Ron. He wanted to avenge Dobby—to silence the mad giggle leaving Bellatrix’s lips.

“He called him _vermin_ , Harry. A pest that required swift extermination. Will you allow such a cruel man to walk away?”

Harry did not know what it was he truly wanted—his anger and despair coiling within him like angry serpents battling for their prey. Lucius had called him a _rat_. As if he were not the first friend he made in Hogwarts—as if he didn’t mean absolutely anything to him at all.

“Don’t.” Harry jolted at the sound of Hermione’s cry. Harry forced his gaze away from Lucius’s own, ignoring the mad witch’s cackle, before noting that Hermione’s plea was not at Bellatrix at all. Instead, Hermione’s brown eyes were staring directly at him.

Her eyes were begging him to stop—and he felt immediately ashamed for what he had almost considered doing. But then Voldemort pressed closer into his back, ripping him away from Hermione’s pleading eyes.

His touch felt incredibly hot.

“Do you not want to punish the man that has ripped you apart? Would that not be justice, Harry?” Harry trembled, faintly noticing that the magic restraining him had dissipated, as if he hadn’t been standing in the same position the past few minutes. Harry lifted his wand hand up, pointing it directly at Lucius—deciding that looking in Hermione’s eyes would be too much for him to bear in that second.

“M-my Lord?” Harry wanted to smile at the nervousness in Lucius’s tone, the smug satisfaction in the blonde man’s eyes shifting to one of unease in an instant. It made something savage curl in Harry’s gut.

Harry had to admit that it felt _good_.

“ _Silence_.” Voldemort hissed, and the protests Lucius wanted to make died a quick death. No one said a word then, the silence only broken by Hermione’s panting and Bellatrix’s giggles.

“Do it, Harry.” Voldemort’s voice had melted into a soft croon once more.

But Harry was not going to do it. He could damn well revel in the fear in Lucius’s eyes, but Hermione was right. He _shouldn’t_. Even if he felt like he’d been ripped completely in two. Even if his anger called for justice—to avenge the first friend he had ever made in Hogwarts. And Dobby, poor Dobby who had finally tasted freedom for the first time.

Let Voldemort think Harry would actually do it—he had learned his lesson fifth year. He would never let Voldemort control him again.

He would not tarnish Ron or Dobby’s memories that way.

Harry gasped when Voldemort suddenly seized his hand, his fingers unnaturally hot as they wound tightly around Harry’s white knuckled grip on the wand.

“It is…a shame that you will not indulge me as your younger self had once before.” Harry felt Voldemort’s hot breath in the back of his neck, and his skin just crawled from the sensation.

Harry was flabbergasted—his eyes wide. How did Voldemort know he was lying?

“I can smell anger and your hatred on your skin. Yet you refuse to give in to it. What else must be taken from you before you allow yourself to give in to that darkness?” Harry trembled when Voldemort forced his hand to point the wand at Hermione, horror seizing him completely when he could not jerk his hand away.

When had Voldemort cast magic? He had been able to move seconds before…

“Bellatrix, lift her.” Harry paled when the witch smiled sweetly at Voldemort, removing her foot from where it had stabbed painfully into Hermione’s back, before digging her fingers into Hermione’s wild hair.

Bellatrix jerked Hermione to her feet by the strands, the madwoman’s black wand pressing firmly to Hermione’s throat as she did. Hermione did not cry out despite the rough treatment, her chin held high. There was no fear in her eyes—but it did nothing to settle Harry’s nerves.

She looked resigned. Prepared for whatever will come her way.

Harry did not know what to make of that, his nerves beyond frayed when Voldemort’s fingers tightened on his own grip for a second, before leaning further into Harry. He tried not to shiver when he felt Voldemort press his lips to his ear, a warm breath fanning over the delicate skin.

“Should I kill her right now, Harry?” Harry exhaled sharply at the words, staring at Hermione’s own eyes. He begged her with his eyes to do something—but Bellatrix’s hold was like steel, the power in his body apparent in the way Hermione trembled in the witch’s grip. Hermione was prepared for death, Harry could see it in the firm curve of her lips, the pallor of her own skin. She knew she was going to die today.

But Harry did not want to accept this. He could _not_ accept this.

“Hermione—“he tried to vocalize what he thought, to convince her with his words. But Voldemort’s soft laugh stopped him altogether, the vibrations at Harry’s back entirely distracting.

“If you do not kill Lucius, Harry. I will kill her. The mudblood knows her fate.” Harry trembled with both rage and fear, understanding dawning on him then. Voldemort wanted him to give in to the darkness—to cast powerful dark magic to satiate his own sick games. Harry was a piece in a giant chess board, his movements not made of his own accord.

It was sick. People were not just _things_ meant to be used in such a way.

“Curse him, Harry. Give _in_. I can assure you that it does not hurt.” Harry closed his eyes, unwilling to look at Hermione any longer. He was going to have to curse Malfoy. He never in his life thought that he would ever be put in this position again.

“My patience is not endless.” He quickly opened his eyes at Voldemort’s impatient tone, dismayed when he found that he had regained movement in his arms once more. He pointed the wand away from Hermione’s steady form, her face twisting into a pained grimace when Bellatrix’s pulled her head further back.

Lucius looked white as a sheet, the fear in his eyes doing nothing for Harry in that precise moment. The last time, Harry had been upset—drowning in the hurt and rage of losing two close friends within moments. Now, there was no satisfaction to be found.

No savage satisfaction at watching the patriarch bow his head at whatever look the dark lord had given him.

“Remember Harry, you must _mean_ it.” Harry took a shuddering breath, before he steeled himself for what he was going to do. He tried to snatch at his old hurt—to tease his fingers through the anger and pain coiling in his gut. He looked for the darkness he never dared touch within him, allowing the choking agony to drown him.

He felt lightheaded from the kaleidoscope of emotions thrumming over his skin.

“ _Avada Kedavra_.” He whispered, but there was no spark of magic. No familiar green to light up the end of this wand and shoot out at the frightened man. It was no more than a parlor trick. Harry felt relieved at that, but the emotion was quickly squelched when Voldemort laughed lightly against his back.

“ _Again_.” Harry swallowed from the heat in the man’s voice, squaring his shoulders. He counted from one to ten before preparing to cast again.

“ _Avada Kedavra_.”

That time was just as effective as the first.

“Bellatrix.” Harry stiffened, unable to help turning his gaze back to where Hermione and Bellatrix stood. “It seems our guest needs a little more encouragement. Kill her.”

The order seized all air from Harry’s lungs. Before he could even attempt to protest, to beg that he would try again. That he would do better, he heard the familiar incantation of the cutting curse.

And then there was red, blood splattering him completely.

There was a wide gash at Hermione’s throat, her mouth croaking for air. He struggled, noticing then that Voldemort was no longer holding him down with his magic, but was simply caging him into his arms.

But he didn’t care that Voldemort was wrapped so tightly around him—that he could feel the monster’s heartbeat at his back.

Hermione was dying.

“No!” He cried, but between Bellatrix’s cackles and Voldemort’s strength, Harry watched the light leave Hermione’s eyes.

There was no dignity in this death—the tears in her eyes drawing tears in Harry’s own. His throat burned with his desire to sob.

He couldn’t take this. Whatever heart he had left was ripped completely out of his chest.

He felt hollow, strangely detached from his own body as he ceased struggling. His legs felt like they were ready to give out, the futility squashing the little hope he had left.

He’d gladly embrace death, right then and there.

“And leave so soon? But you have only just arrived, Harry. It is only fitting that you stay and enjoy my hospitality.” Voldemort’s whispered into Harry’s ear.

“After all, your stay is a permanent one, my little Horcrux.”

Harry was too overwhelmed to bother resisting at that precise moment.


	8. Lucky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: T.
> 
> Warning: Psychological Torture, Character death, Canon-Typical violence, and my horrid typos.
> 
> Prompt: Harrymort + Lucky
> 
> I don't know what happened, but here it is. Please comment if you have enjoyed the piece :)

Harrymort + Lucky

 

“Is it not beautiful, Harry?” Harry swallowed thickly, ignoring the way Voldemort’s body pressed so closely to his back. It was scalding—a warmth that settled uncomfortably into the muscles of his back. It wasn’t a heat that burned, consumed, and charred the delicate flesh underneath layers of his robes.

But Harry certainly wished it hurt.

Since his captivity, it always came as a surprise that Voldemort’s touch no longer hurt him. That the madness in the man’s touch was no longer pure agony, but this strange discomfiting tingle of awareness. It drove him mad to notice the minute movements of the Dark Lord—to drown in the thick power of his magic and its jarring familiarity.

It shouldn’t feel this way, but it did. Always did.

He hated it.

“Beautiful? You’ve burned everything to the ground.” Harry whispered, ignoring the way Voldemort’s fingers settled into his shoulders, the spider-like digits chasing away the chill of the night air.

Harry didn’t want the contact—the intimacy of the moment. But he was rooted in place, his eyes riveted by the destruction of his old childhood home.

Not that Number 4 Privet drive had been much of a home to begin with.

It lay abandoned—no longer ordinary, but a mere shadow of its former glory. Harry had not anticipated being taken here—he had expected that Voldemort would wish to show him Hogwarts, the place that Harry had truly called his home. Hell, he had expected to be taken to the Weasleys’ old abode, but not _this._

This was unexpected, and in his shock, he did absolutely nothing when Voldemort nudged him by the shoulders to move. There was no sliver of space between their bodies—Voldemort’s own skeletal shape smoothed over his own as Harry was forced to walk over the blackened lawn.

It looked as if the place had been burned to the ground—as if someone had cast a Fiendfyre and allowed the beast to take its fill of the quaint little home. And it definitely had to be the case. Who else but a dark wizard would come into his old home and tear it apart? It was a symbol of death, of the casting away of the world as Harry once knew it. It was the beginning of something new, and horrifying.

In that moment, Harry was very grateful the Dursleys had come away unscathed. They had been abusive, and he hated them for all the years of misery they had heaped over him, but he could never wish this sort of pain for them. Never this death.

They didn’t want the world Harry brought along with him when he was abandoned of their doorstep. He couldn’t necessarily blame them for it. There was a dark wizard hunting him, licking the air for a taste of his blood and sweat. And Harry had been heaped onto their shoulders to carry with them the burden of Harry’s destiny. He was their grim reaper, the sole reason they would be targeted in the first place.

It was absolutely horrid, quite sick to be thrown back into the place. But Harry could not look away as Voldemort guided him over the lawn and into the front porch of the home. The door completely blasted off its hinges.

Harry was punched by the smell of ashes. Overwhelmed by the power of destruction.

There was sick anticipation building in his gut, a sense of horror. Harry did not know what it was he was going to find in there—what Voldemort intended to show him. All he knew was that it _definitely_ was not going to be pleasant. There was hardly anything pleasant about the monster walking too closely behind him.

He stifled his shivers when Voldemort’s fingers kneaded at his shoulders then, seemingly unable to stop touching Harry. Harry wanted desperately to step out of his orbit—to remove himself completely from the cloying warmth in the man’s fingers. But he was helplessly bound to him, the notion of being under unimaginable pain if he broke the contact the only thing keeping his defiance in check.

It should have relieved Harry that Voldemort’s touch was no longer a source of pain. And at first, it was. He had been glad that Voldemort’s touch no longer made Harry want to scratch at the skin of his forehead for relief—that his scar no longer pulsed with rabid agony and hate. Though now, he wished he could return to a simpler time.

A time where a moment apart from Voldemort did not subject him to the very same agony the monster’s touch had once given him. Harry needed Voldemort’s touch like an addict needed his fix—or he’d be screaming for days on end.

He _hated_ what his life had become in a span of months.

“But is there not beauty in destruction?” Voldemort’s voice made something feral settle in Harry’s gut, an angry voice that wanted to savage and buck the man’s fingers from his body. A darkness that tempted him to turn in Voldemort’s hold and just _hurt_ him.

But he squelched the violent thought as soon as it came, horrified that the thought of beating Voldemort to death crossed his mind at all. It shouldn’t have been as much of a shock as it was, Harry had seen endless bouts of violence at the hands of this monster since his capture months before. But he could not help how unsettled the thought made him.

“Honestly, no.” Harry denied after a few moments of silence, shoving aside his concerns to step through the doorway and into the depilated living room. It was silly of him to think the room would look as it once had. He should have known from the state of the house from outside that it would be just as horrid inside. But there was no avoiding the shock that overtook him at the sight of black everywhere, ashes collected on the ground.

The stuffing from the couches was all over the floor, the once pristine surfaces of the bookshelves and the sitting table splintered and rough.

The images were too much for him. This was the place he had lived in for a majority of his life—he half expected his Aunt and Uncle to come barreling through the open doorway of the kitchen at the other side to berate him for the mess he’d made of their house.

But Harry doubted he would ever see their faces again though. Alive, that is.

Another beat of silence passed before Harry, uncomfortable with the heavy silence and the direction his thoughts had gone, chose to speak again. Despising the fact that all he had was Voldemort to speak to.

“Is there a particular reason we are here? I didn’t take you for the nostalgic type.” Harry murmured, skin prickling with unease when Voldemort’s chest began to vibrate with laughter. In that precise second, Harry wished he could look at Voldemort’s face and pinpoint just what the man’s intentions were.

It wouldn’t necessarily yield him much, but it would at least feel like he was somewhat closer to understanding just how the man’s mind worked. He had once believed that Voldemort was a raving madman, the horcruxes taking with him all thought and reason. Harry, however, discovered that there was still some sliver of lucidity left in there.

A crying voice that, instead of begging for blood and violence, turned the cogs in Voldemort’s brain. It was shrewd, the way the man seemed to conduct himself. He may have resembled a monster, but there was still some humanity in there. And it made Voldemort all the more terrifying.

“There is something I wish to show you.” Voldemort did not say anything else, and Harry huffed angrily when Voldemort nudged him forward again, pushing him past the destroyed living room and up the stairs.

It did not look sturdy or safe, but Harry did not bother to voice his concerns. If he fell to his death, it would be significantly more preferable than the life he was already living. His best friends were dead, the light leaving their eyes the last thing he managed to see before he was snatched away by the Dark Lord.

It was foolish of him to think that they could hide him away from Voldemort when he had overtaken the Ministry. He had lost Hedwig in that endeavor, and it came as no surprise when he had lost his best friends not shortly after that. The memory tainted all pleasant thoughts he had of his friends—the vision of Voldemort’s eyes gleaming with pleasure as he killed them one that starred endlessly in his nightmares. And he had seen it all, helpless and unable to prevent the toxic green from snuffing out their lives.

The Light had fallen easily after that, their mission to destroy horcruxes halted permanently once Snape was killed in the Battle. Voldemort was at the height of his power and there was little that could be done to stop him now.

So it did not make sense that he was taken back here to Number 4 Privet Drive when his relatives, before Voldemort had captured him, had been ushered away from their home. There was nothing here but memories. What could Voldemort hope to accomplish with this?

“But there is nothing here?” Harry continued to move despite his confusion. Voldemort had yet to answer when they had finally arrived to the top, the hall looking just as charred as the living room had. The picture frames that the Dursleys had keep were no longer hung against the walls, the only sign that they had been there at all; the small holes in the wall several inches above his head.

Voldemort continued to push him through the hall, and Harry let him, resigned to the man’s manhandling. He had stopped fighting this particular action earlier in his captivity—it never quite ended well.

They did not stop until Harry was standing in front of a familiar door, the wood pristine and untouched by the black that ate away at the few other doors he had passed. It should have been his first clue that the real reason for their visit lied in Harry’s old bedroom, but before his suspicion could really register, the door bust open with the force of Voldemort’s magic.

Harry’s blood ran cold at the sight in front of him.

The Dursleys laid gagged and bound in his old bedroom, their fearful eyes focused solely on where Harry stood frozen at the entrance.

“W-what?” Harry swallowed hard, his breathing coming faster when Voldemort pushed him further into the room and closed the door behind him. The click of the lock incredibly loud to his ears, like gun-shots going off in the heavy silence of the room. The Dursleys did not whimper or cry out despite the desire Harry could see their eyes to do so—desperation warping their faces into something that bordered on inhuman.

He could see Vernon’s forehead damp with sweat, his eyes bright with moisture Harry could not mistake for anything else, but tears. Vernon, the man that had instilled such fear in Harry as a young boy, looked so frail in that moment that Harry was repulsed.

Harry did not bother to turn his gaze away from Vernon’s fearful face, he doubted he could keep himself from wilting like some flower if he saw the same look of terror in Dudley and Petunia’s eyes. He knew they would both look just as pitiful and afraid as Vernon. Who wouldn’t? Had Harry been in their shoes, he’d likely be terrified himself.

“A gift.” Voldemort whispered into his ear, and Harry recoiled from the contact. However, Harry did not move far, Voldemort was still holding rather tightly onto his shoulders. He took in a shuddering breath to silence the screaming in the back of his mind, convinced that if he were to open his mouth, he’d voice the screams in his head.

It took Harry several seconds to gather himself.

“Why?” It was the first thing he thought to ask. The rest of his thoughts were vague and hazy, a stream of consciousness that hardly made any sense to him. The only thing that really stood out for him was his burning need to _know_ why they were even here in the first place. The Order had been careful to hide them away—to pack their meager things and send them off. They should not have been in Britain at all, it was the entire purpose of carting them away.

How had Voldemort managed to find them?

“These muggles denied you your birth right, did they not? Hid from you the true reason for being thrust into their care.” Harry did not speak as he listened, ripping his gaze away from the Dursleys to stare out through the cracked window at the end of his old bedroom. He could see the stars and the sky outside—the darkness swirling there similar to the magic coiling and licking at his skin.

Voldemort’s magic reminded Harry of the night sky, or was it the other way around?

“You and I are very much alike.” Harry shuddered when Voldemort nudged him further into the room until he was standing over the shrinking forms of the Dursleys. He had never seen them look so small, always accustomed to them standing above him.

There was no satisfaction in seeing them in such a way—how could there be? He understood their fears, having lived them for months now in Voldemort’s care. There was plenty for the Dursleys to fear about wizards—they could tear their pitiful world apart with just the flick of their wrists. They could destroy identities, create new ones, with the simple sip of a potion or the whisper of an incantation.

There was so much for the Dursleys to fear—even if Harry when he was still a child, could do none of those things. Or wanted to, for that matter.

He was no Voldemort. Let the man think they were alike.

Voldemort was _wrong._ Nothing would make Harry think otherwise.

“We are _nothing_ alike.” Harry seethed, his eyes hot with anger when the man had the audacity to laugh at him. Harry’s back vibrated from the force of it, a reminder again of just how close Voldemort stood behind him.

“On the contrary, Harry. We are very _much_ alike. Did you not resent every second you were back in the care of your…family? Did you not wish to return to Hogwarts, a world that accepted you, where its walls gave your pitiful life purpose?” Harry swallowed, but shook his head in denial.

It was true, but that was where the similarities _ended_. Harry had not sought to crush the world beneath his feet—he did not desire to control and to kill all those that questioned his authority. Harry had only wanted to _belong_. Harry had been happy simply being surrounded by the resplendence of his dormitory. To sit at the table with his friends surrounding him as he ate and listened to the adventures of his fellow Gryffindors.

He didn’t want _more_. He was content with what he had because he had come from nothing.

To imply that he and Voldemort were the same was absolutely mad.

“You can hide from yourself, Harry, but you can never hide from _me._ Lord Voldemort knows _all_.” And then Voldemort released his grip on Harry, shoving him completely away.

Shock was the only discernable emotion in his mind before the scar at his forehead exploded with pain. It knocked the wind from his lungs—killed all thoughts of denying Voldemort’s ridiculous words before he had the chance of speaking them.

And then he was screaming, pressing his hands into his forehead in hopes that it would somehow abate the agony that he was feeling. It felt as if there was a blade cutting away at the skin, pressing and _pressing_ until it dug into his skull. He tried to scramble back to Voldemort, to renew the contact that kept him perfectly safe from this pain, but right as he was inches from touching him, an invisible barrier manifested and prevented him from reaching him.

He cried out in dismay, biting back the tears of agony that wanted to trickle down his cheeks. But he refused to cry—the last time he had cried was when his friends had been brutally taken from him. He absolutely refused to cry again, not in front of Voldemort’s smug face or in front of the still terrified eyes of the Dursleys.

He didn’t understand why the man had released him—what did the man bloody want from him? He could hardly keep himself upright from the pain, curling into himself as he released another pained cry when the pain seemed to spread from his scar and further into his skull.

 _Merlin, I am going to lose my bloody mind_.

“You have a choice. A simple one.” But Harry had no clue what it was the man was asking. He struggled to lift himself from his bent position to look Voldemort in the eyes. To discern from the swirl of ruby just what it was the man wanted.

“G-get to the bloody point.” Harry managed to choke out, his voice hoarse from his continuous shrieks. He was proud that he had managed to get even those simple words out through the misery.

Voldemort did not speak for what felt like an eternity, and Harry was desperate to end the pain. He scratched at the invisible wall in hopes that it would fall through his sheer determination alone, but he might as well had been trying to penetrate steel.

Harry was preparing to speak again, but Voldemort chose that very instant to interrupt. Harry was not sure if he should feel relieved or disgusted with himself at how desperately he wanted to hear it.

It seemed the torture was truly corroding the little sanity Harry managed to hold on to.

“Their lives or your sanity. I did not bring them here for you to simply gawk, I had expected you would feel overjoyed at having your tormentors brought before you.” If Harry had not already been screaming, he definitely would have screamed then in absolute horror. The only real tormentor in this room was Voldemort—the Dursleys’ abuse paled considerably from the suffering he had already undergone and would face in the very immediate future.

This was madness. Absolute madness.

“Is this not what you wanted? To have them on their knees before you? How disgustingly noble of you to deny that darkness in your soul.” Harry’s throat was frayed, mouth gaping open in silent screams because the agony did not stop, _would not stop_.

“My patience is not endless, Harry. If you do not decide within a reasonable time, I will simply kill them and leave you here with their rotting corpses.”

Harry was horrified, and guessing from the sudden shuffling sounds behind him, the Dursleys were just as terrified. Their deaths were a given, there was no sure way for Harry to get out of this without having to pay a hefty price.

So why did it matter that he had to choose? Why did Voldemort have to make him choose between himself and their lives when he was simply going to kill them anyway? Harry knew that the man was manipulative, an absolute sadist that reveled in the suffering of others. He had seen it when he punished his own followers so callously. He could hear it in the way Voldemort’s breath caught when Harry screamed and writhed under his torture curse.

The man was a monster. It was only fitting that he looked just as he was. Rotten to the core.

“You are fortunate, Harry. I do not give these opportunities so freely.”

Harry felt anything but fortunate. He felt rather unlucky, for that matter.

“F-fuck you.” Harry felt immense satisfaction when Voldemort’s lips quirked into a frown, the amusement in his eyes fading into rage. This, Harry was more than a bit familiar with. He could handle the Dark Lord when he was angry, when his magic was bursting with his desire to maim and hurt. It always left Harry in incredible pain, but it was a _distraction_.

The man was a raw nerve—easily tipped over the edge when prodded in just the right way. And Harry _excelled_ at just hitting the man where it hurt. If the man was simply too angry, then it gave Harry all the opportunity to lead him away from his less than pleasant intentions to kill the Dursleys.

It could mean another day for them.

“ _Crucio_.” All thought of saving the Dursleys fled Harry’s mind.

He was an open wound—his nerves set ablaze from the power of Voldemort’s curse and his own withdrawal from Voldemort’s touch. He felt like he was on fire, like his skin was blistering just as Number 4 Privet Drive had been burned.

He was screaming so loudly that he was shocked he still had throat left—that his voicebox had not exploded from the abuse.

He didn’t think it could get much worse—that his pain could somehow increase, but the longer Voldemort held him under it, it _did_. The pain was so intense that his mind blanked completely.

He needed it to stop. He wanted it to stop. He’d do anything to get it to stop.

_Stopstopstopstop._

And then the spell was lifted, but there was still pain. So much pain, there was no relief to be found.

“Your choice, Harry? I could hold you under this curse all day. I could curse your disgusting muggle family too, if you wish. I have _plenty_ of time now that the Wizarding world belongs to me.”

Harry was trembling from the aftershocks. He did not have the heart to look at the Dursleys that were sitting just a few feet behind him, but he did. He needed to. He hated himself for the decision he was going to make because he could not handle much more of this.

His mind felt like it was splitting apart.

“I-I don’t want to suffer anymore.” Harry choked the words out, fighting off another wave of agony that overwhelmed his senses. His cheeks felt damp, and it was at that precise second that Harry realized he’d been crying. It was selfish of him—so selfish in fact that he could not help the intense loathing he felt for himself and for Voldemort in that second.

He looked deeply into the faces of the Dursleys, switching between Vernon’s pale cheeks, Petunia’s wide eyes, and Dudley’s quivering lip.

Voldemort would not stop until Harry would give him what he wanted. He would torture his family into insanity if Harry continued to fight—

This show was not really for Harry, if Harry thought about it. It was for the Dursleys. It was meant to show them just what awaited them if Harry continued to fight. The Dursleys were the real target—who Voldemort wanted to sink his claws into. On Harry’s behalf.

Voldemort wanted revenge for hurting what was his. For doing what Tom Marvolo Riddle had himself faced in Wool’s Orphanage. It was almost comical how warped Voldemort’s generosity was—that this was no gift at all, but another method of breaking Harry’s already vulnerable mind.

It was incredibly fucked up—the way the man had pressed Harry between a rock and a hard place. His sanity for their lives, a painful death or a quick one at Harry’s behest.

He wanted to be violently ill.

“ _Avada Kedavra._ ” The room was bright with the sickening color of green, and Harry could do nothing else but cry from the weight of his choice and the pain. Always the pain of Voldemort’s absence on his skin.

He hated how badly he needed to touch Voldemort. How desperately he wished he would pull the invisible wall down so that he could feel relief.

He was trembling with the weight of his guilt.

“How lucky you are, Harry Potter. I take great care of those that belong to _me_. You will want for nothing.”

Harry continued to cry even when Voldemort crouched over his fallen form, his fingers gliding over his wet cheeks. Even when the pain stopped and all Harry could see was Voldemort’s smoldering red eyes.


	9. Ego

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: M (I would really say T, but not sure where the sexual content lands me)
> 
> Prompt: A/B/O “Do you really think all omegas want to be fucked by you? Sorry to break it to you, but you can fuck off.” + Tomarry
> 
> Warnings: Mild Sexual Content, Possessive Tom, and my horrid typos.

“Do you really think all omegas want to be fucked by you? Sorry to break it to you, but you can fuck off.”

Harry regretted the words immediately after he said them. He wanted to inhale them back into his throat, to bite his tongue to keep the insult from leaving his mouth. But it was too late to take them back now, he had already shoved his foot as bloody far as his throat allowed.

Harry held his ground despite the sudden twitch of Riddle’s lips, as if the man was trying valiantly to repress his amusement at the sight of an Omega mouthing off at him. It was a look Harry was all too familiar with after years of suffering through Riddle’s presence. It was startling how little Riddle had changed since they both graduated from Hogwarts.

“Oh? Are you suggesting that you’re not interested in me, Harry?” Harry scowled at the amused tone in Riddle’s voice, noting how the man’s nostrils flared to take in his scent in the crowded street. Riddle looked more intimidating than ever, if Harry was being honest. Harry recalled how tall the man had been back in school—how meticulously dressed and imposing he was in class, but this image presented before him was entirely different. He looked predatory, like a snake carefully luring its prey into its nest.

It made Harry more than a little uncomfortable. Before Harry could think to say something, Riddle beat him to the punch, stepping slightly closer to where Harry was standing in the street.

“You smell just as exquisite as ever. That slight pungent smell of your fear, and…” Harry swallowed when Riddle’s eyes dropped to his lips before flickering up back to Harry’s eyes. “…your arousal, how interesting. That certainly hasn’t _changed.”_

Harry resisted the embarrassment that wanted to crawl up his cheeks, focusing instead on the fact that this man practiced _dark_ magic and spent the majority of his life working in a shady store in the back of Knockturn Alley. It was quite ridiculous that the man would even suggest that Harry was attracted to him. It was absolute rubbish. The man didn’t know a single thing about Harry.

But why did his heart feel like it was ready to burst? Why did Riddle’s smell just as intoxicating? So very warm and familiar? It was terrible.

“Clearly a mistake. I’d sooner fuck a blender before I let you lay your filthy hands on me.” Harry snarled, choosing at that precise moment to leave. The situation was getting out of hand and Harry rather not lose any more control than he already had. He was still on his suppressants and a good few weeks away from his heat—there was really nothing for him to fear.

But just the _threat_ of this man’s presence was enough to put him on edge. Riddle was dangerous, if the fluttering of his instincts was anything to go by.

This man was a devil.

Harry knew that he was, but this attraction between them certainly made things difficult to shove aside. If only Riddle was ugly—if only evil did not look that damn good in a pair of tight trousers. But it certainly made plenty of sense that evil would be this appealing. The devil’s job of seducing its hapless victims would be much more difficult if the monster was as hideous as popular media suggested.

It certainly sucked Riddle didn’t smell all that unpleasant either.

“You can lie to yourself all you wish, Harry. But you certainly cannot _lie_ to me. Your scent tells me something else entirely.” Harry shuddered at the dark note in the Alpha’s voice, both irritated and upset that Tom decided to pursue him down the street to Diagon Alley. But Harry otherwise did not respond, knowing well that there was no point in arguing with the man. It was always best to ignore him—to not meet Riddle’s fire with his own because that would definitely lead Harry down a rabbit hole he’d rather not go.

Instead Harry focused on trying to gather his senses, overwhelmed entirely by Riddle’s scent despite the array of other smells in the crowded street. It was incredible how hyperaware Harry was of Riddle, of how the man’s presence was both suffocating and magnetic—something Harry had always hated in the man since his days back in Hogwarts.

If someone had told Harry during his first four years at Hogwarts that he would hate Riddle as intensely as he did now, he would have laughed in their face. Riddle was always polite and courteous to him—a beautiful mask perfectly in place when speaking to all the students in the school. He was a role model—the golden boy of the school. But, Harry mused, things certainly changed after the incident his Fifth year.

The death of Myrtle Warren and Hagrid’s unfortunate expulsion.

Harry _knew_ Hagrid had not done it, the bloke was soft and kind. He was a bit strange and had a worse knack for getting into trouble than Harry himself did, but _acromantula could not paralyze students_. If it had just been Myrtle that had fallen victim, Harry would have found it more believable, but Hermione and a slew of other students had been paralyzed.

Everything in Harry’s mind screamed that there was something strange going on. And the fact that Riddle somehow roped Hagrid into the mess just left an acrid taste in his mouth. Harry found that he could not truly trust the boy after that.

But at that time, Harry still had not been entirely too suspicious. He had given the boy the benefit of the doubt. Surely, he could not have _purposefully_ gotten Hagrid expelled.

And then Riddle presented as an Alpha, Harry presenting just shortly after as an Omega. It certainly changed both how Riddle regarded him, and how Harry perceived him. The tension between them more pervasive—more volatile in nature.

It was obnoxious at first just how distracting the man’s scent had been—his presence enough to make everyone swoon. Harry, to his chagrin, _especially_.

It made Harry feel weak and unbalanced in Riddle’s presence. Like at any moment Harry’s heat was going to engulf him completely and rob him of his agency. It didn’t help matters that he could smell the heavy stench of dark magic on Riddle’s skin.

With that development, his suspicions of Riddle became more concrete. No one else seemed to notice the scent of darkness on the man’s skin but Harry, and it drove Harry mad when others gave him strange looks whenever Harry shot a dark look at Riddle.

They thought him infatuated with Riddle—obsessed. But it was more than that, Harry was _afraid_. He was afraid of his awareness of the man, of how day after bloody day Riddle’s aura grew steadily darker until it was practically impossible for Harry to be around Riddle without choking.

 _And his smell_.

Harry did not want to think about how delicious it was. Like dark chocolate and cloves.

Harry wanted to groan aloud at the trajectory his thoughts had taken, but resisted the impulse when Riddle continued to linger behind him like some love sick puppy. He knew that ignoring him was the best option, but damn it, it was difficult with the man’s smell driving him mad.

“Don’t you have something better to do? World domination to plan? Is that head of yours so thick that you can’t see I don’t want you anywhere near me?” Harry seethed, turning down a narrower alley, a short-cut Harry normally took to work.

He had little time to think before Tom shot a bruising grip over his arm, and shoved him harshly against the wall. He could smell the cloying scent of Tom’s hormones, the muskiness overwhelming his senses so suddenly that he didn’t resist when Tom trapped his hands behind his back and pressed himself entirely too close to Harry’s frame.

“I wonder…” Harry swallowed when Tom’s nose pressed into the nape of his neck, his breath scalding as he sniffed at the skin. Harry did not know what Tom was looking for, but he sincerely hoped he didn’t find it. It was difficult enough that he needed to take suppressants to mask some of his scent from the noses of other Alphas in the wizarding world—he didn’t wish to up his dosage simply on the account of this arsehole. Especially when his body unwittingly melted underneath Riddle’s body like putty.

“…if you would still be this brave and defiant if you knew what I was capable of.” Tom ground his hips into Harry’s arse, and Harry exhaled a sharp breath, air whooshing out of his lungs as he tried to process just _what_ was happening. His body was burning up, a strange haze overtaking his vision when Riddle’s scent became headier, something spicy and rich making it harder for Harry to breathe.

_Merlin, he smells like—_

Harry’s skin felt warm, his hands clammy with sweat. He was entirely too anxious and nervous, the proximity of Tom’s mouth to his throat a threat Harry had not been prepared to deal with when he had woken up this morning. Harry felt like he was being pulled in two different directions. He tried not to think of _the other_ more pressing thought nagging at him at the back of his mind—one that Harry was both unprepared and unwilling to deal with. A side of himself yanking and resisting his common sense and fear.

_Like how good Riddle felt pressed up against my—_

“Sod off!” Harry stiffened when he felt Riddle’s teeth graze his neck, entirely _too_ close to where his bonding gland was, before regaining enough of his senses to struggle beneath the Alpha. Harry tried to kick and buck the man off, but Riddle had thoroughly trapped him against the wall, his legs pressing hard into the back of Harry’s knees to prevent him from escaping. Harry tried to ignore the feeling of Riddle’s heat against his skin, of the hardness of Riddle’s cock against his arse when he unwittingly ground grinded against it in his struggles, but when Riddle _groaned—_

Harry only grew more desperate to escape.

_His teeth were too close and—_

“Or would it simply excite you that I could crush you…?” Harry made to protest but Riddle’s warning growl stopped him, the heat of Riddle’s mouth on his bare neck making Harry swallow hard. “Or is it that you already know how dangerous I am, and you can’t help how much it _excites you_. Is that it, Harry? ” Harry wanted to object, to deny it because he _wasn’t_ attracted.

He couldn’t be.

Riddle was a dark wizard. The man had no place in Harry’s future. Riddle had _framed_ Hagrid and had possibly killed Myrtle Warren. This man was _evil_.

“I’d rather be put under the Cruciatus curse than suffer another second in your presence, Riddle.” Harry snapped, letting out a snarl of his own when Riddle’s teeth pressed warningly into his neck. Harry was frightened that the man would actually bite him, then, but he didn’t curl into himself.

Harry may have been an omega, but he certainly was no coward.

Harry yelped when Riddle suddenly released him, scrambling to regain his balance before turning a spiteful glare on Riddle.

Harry was immensely glad that Riddle had chosen not to bite him. He had no idea what he would have done if Riddle had.

Riddle’s scent was still overpowering him, but it was a relief nevertheless to be away from Riddle’s scalding touch. It made his skin tingle too strangely—it brought to life an urge Harry dared not think on. It was already bad that Riddle’s teeth had been pressed too intimately over his neck.  He didn’t wish to let his hormones run amok when still in the presence of an Alpha.

He doubted he could handle any more humiliation at being aroused by this show of force.

“Run then, little Omega, if it pleases you.”

Harry felt no shame when he did just that, cursing the fates for throwing him back into Riddle’s orbit. He thought he would never see him again after graduation. He certainly hoped it would be the case. The memory of Riddle’s too dark eyes and beautiful face enough to bring back memories of a time when Harry had entertained the idea of sleeping with Riddle—of giving in to the promises percolating in his eyes and the intoxicating smell of dark chocolate in his breath. But it seemed it was too much to ask for. Fate had a funny way of just ruining his carefully laid plans.

_Like making me want Riddle to bend me over and—_

Harry did not dare pursue the thought. His cheeks burning and his insides fluttering with the arousal he _positively did not feel._

Harry was just about to turn the corner when he heard Riddle speak again, the sound of it making Harry pick up even more speed.

“But know this, there is nowhere on this earth that can hide you from me.”

Harry felt both hot and cold as he threw himself into the crowd of bustling wizards. Riddle’s rich baritone following him all the way into his office.


	10. Scented

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: E for Explicit
> 
> Warnings: ABO Dynamics, Knotting, Self-Lubrication, Pain Play, Explicit Sexual Content, Dubious Consent, Snakeface!Voldemort and my awful typos.
> 
> Prompt: “Look at your neck. Look at the marks I left. You are mine. And solely mine.” + Harrymort

ABO—

“Look at your neck. Look at the marks I left. You are mine. And solely mine.”

Harry snarled in response to Voldemort’s words, unwilling and resistant of the impulse that warred inside him to _obey_. It was a soft croon, a decadent utterance at the back of his head that urged him to bridge the gap between their bodies.

But Harry refused to comply even if it physically pained him to be away—to resist this man that had ingrained himself into Harry’s mind.

“Fuck _you_.” It was the only response Harry could think of at that moment, his stomach in knots when the Dark Lord rose from his throne to glide over to where Harry stood frozen several feet in the chamber. Harry was completely naked, save for the marks that Harry did _not_ want to think about coloring his skin different shades of blue and red.

The colors reminded him idly of a Monet painting, of the blurring of the edges of his skin like that of a canvas. He was no longer the white that he had used to be—no longer the untied Omega he wished he remained.

Voldemort saw to that. He had sank his teeth so deep into Harry’s flesh that there was little for Harry to do but buck and scream as the man drank his blood.

Harry had been overwhelmed, ripped apart from the force in the man’s jaw. And then came the _pain._ Harry had felt like his soul had been split apart, a pressure so sickening in his gut that it still shocked him that he had not died the instance Voldemort had claimed him.

It was pure agony, like hot knives carving their way into his chest. It was shocking that _no one_ saw fit to tell Harry just how painful a soul-bond could be.

But he supposed, binding yourself to Voldemort who had _little_ soul left could do that. Perhaps, it wasn’t normally this painful and it was Voldemort’s…unique circumstances that made this worse?

“How…vulgar, Harry.” Voldemort’s voice no louder than a whisper. “Shall I show you how mine you are? Drown you in my scent until there is little doubt in your mind that you belong to _me_?” His tone set something aflame in Harry’s stomach, despite the softness of the Dark Lord’s usual hiss.

There was no doubt that his words were a threat.

“I am _not_ yours. I don’t care if we have a soul-bond. I am my own _person_.”

Then Harry was scrambling back, resisting the thrumming beneath his skin to give in, when the man continued to move slowly towards him. Harry wanted to whimper and growl as he watched Voldemort prowl in the dark, his scent growing more overpowering—and his _magic_ ; oh how his magic called for his own, the intensity of it giving Voldemort’s essence some sort of sentience as it sought Harry’s own.

Harry’s magic was clear and pristine despite how sullied he felt when Voldemort bonded to him. Despite the painful ecstasy of Voldemort’s teeth sinking into his neck rather than the painless sensation of a killing curse. Harry had been prepared to die, to meet Death at the other side and rid himself of the shard of Voldemort’s soul that held tightly to his own.

But Voldemort had had other plans, ripping into his neck with such a savagery that it shocked even the Death Eaters in the clearing. The Dark Lord ripping Harry’s clothes off in his desperation to lay his marks on Harry’s skin too much for them to see.

Harry had been grateful the Alpha had not sought to take him then, content with simply binding their souls indefinitely. Sealing both Voldemort’s immortality and Harry’s fate.

It was the only reason he didn’t fight the pull of side-along apparition when it came; Voldemort whisking them away from the battle in an instant. The familiar pulling at his navel all the warning he had before he was no longer in the clearing, but in the throne room he currently found himself in.

And then Harry had scratched and clawed at Voldemort for release, managing to pull away completely from the Alpha that had so sullied him. He had made it as far as the soul-bond allowed, the reality that he could no longer escape a heavy weight on his mind when Voldemort had not chased after him, but had simply sat himself in the throne to watch Harry struggle against the bond. It had been silent for a few good minutes before Harry, beyond frustrated, had started to snarl and hiss at Voldemort from where he stood—unable to stop himself from provoking the man. It was the only thing that Harry had had left—his body had betrayed him and his soul was no longer his own. All he had had left was his mind and he would be damned before he let Voldemort take that too.

Even if Voldemort’s scent was overpowering and his magic just as oppressive. A rich darkness to the hue that reminded Harry of dark chocolate, of the spicy notes of black licorice in the back of one’s throat.

It made resistance more difficult, made something within Harry purr when Voldemort’s magic chased him in the dark in that moment. There was a dark thrill beneath his skin that he did not wish to acknowledge, one fed by the soft croon in the back of his head weaving promises of how good it would feel to be—

_No!_

Harry focused his attention back to Voldemort, grateful that he did not stop moving despite the war sounding within his head. Voldemort was still a good distance away, seeming to take his time in the poorly lit room to watch Harry run backwards. Harry turned ‘round then, unable to stomach the amusement in the Dark Lord’s eyes any longer.

In reality, Harry knew that running made things worse. That it would only incite the beast to give chase and take him. But he could not help the fear he felt; the fact that he had _bonded with a monster_.

He wanted to scream his horror into the universe in hopes that he could somehow free himself of this nightmare. He wished that he could just wake up back in Number 4 Privet Drive to realize that this was _only_ a dream and not the reality that he was living. But this was reality, and it turned his stomach how his body pulsed with this…need. This heat that Harry had only ever felt a week before his heat.

“Stay.”

And Harry seized up completely, his body refusing to comply with his mental commands when Voldemort uttered the order. His feet were glued to the ground, his hands clenched into tight fists as he tried to resist the man’s soft order. If Harry had known that _this_ was what happened to bonded Omegas, he would never have gone to the clearing alone. He would have never risked his literal neck.

But he was _supposed_ to die. How was Harry supposed to know that Voldemort would make him his Omega? He had thought the man wanted to kill him, not—

“Let me _go_.” Harry tried not to sound like he was begging, to keep the plea out of his voice when the sound of Voldemort’s robes became louder and louder in the chamber, the distance between them shortening. Harry sounded desperate, angry and wounded, the words too similar to begging for Harry’s liking, but he couldn’t help it. He couldn’t remain silent while his world was completely tilted on its head.

Harry felt something coil in his stomach at just the thought of Voldemort touching him. The man had been gracious enough not to take him within view of his followers—to save Harry that humiliation. Harry was sure it had nothing to do with wanting to protect his own modesty, however. Voldemort was an Alpha, and a possessive bastard.

Knowing him, it was more so for his own interest than for Harry’s sake.

And now, they were alone.

It was only Harry and Voldemort in the room, save for their own soft breaths in the dark. No one would dare enter this chamber without Voldemort’s explicit order—there would be no interruptions, not when Voldemort had essentially set his Death Eaters to capture or kill the remaining rebels at Hogwarts.

“Let you go? There is nowhere for you to go, my Little Omega.” Harry shuddered at how close Voldemort sounded, his body melting into Voldemort’s chest when Voldemort’s arms wrapped tightly around Harry’s middle, the touch inflaming Harry’s bare skin. Harry growled, the sound weaker than he intended it to sound, but Voldemort’s pleased purr made something clench in his insides—his breath catch.

He could feel slickness pooling between his legs, horror and dismay cutting through his mind when he realized just how wet he was.

_When did I—_

“I can smell your arousal, Harry.” He shuddered when Voldemort whispered the phrase into his ear. “I can practically taste how desperately you want this despite your pitiful denials.” Harry bit his lip until he drew blood, silencing the whine that threatened to leave his lips when Voldemort pressed his lips to his throat then, too close to where Harry’s pulse was beating wildly beneath his skin.

If Voldemort wanted, he could bite into that skin and bleed Harry out. He could rip through Harry’s jugular and splatter his blood on the concrete ground beneath their feet. And Harry would be unable to stop him, his body still stubbornly refusing to move after his Alpha had given him an order.

“You may have my _body_ , but I will never want you. This is a physical response, and it will never be anything mor—“

Harry’s breath caught when Voldemort nipped at his throat, his split tongue gliding over his skin to soothe the sting of his bite. Harry cursed at the sensation, hating how hyperaware he was of Voldemort’s body pulsing waves of heat at his back.

“G-get off!” Harry stammered out, wincing at how breathless his voice sounded when Voldemort’s hands smoothed down his sides, his nails scratching at the naked skin. It made gooseflesh rise over his exposed flesh, lighting a flame of want that made the moisture between his legs more obvious.

Harry’s heart was beating too quickly, he felt like it was ready to burst.

“This is a _soul-bond_ , Harry. Your bear more than just my mark on your neck.” Voldemort murmured the words into Harry’s neck, the sensation of his teeth pressing on Harry’s skin making his gut clench, his cock flush with arousal, and his arse slick with desire.

Harry could smell Voldemort’s own arousal in the dark, the musky note of it just as exciting as the feeling of Voldemort’s teeth on his neck. Harry wanted to crawl into a hole and die, but when Voldemort’s hand slipped between his legs to trail his fingers over the glistening head of his cock, Harry whimpered.

He bloody _whimpered_ as if he’d never wanked a day in his life. Harry was beyond mortified, his cheeks warm and his eyes wet with embarrassment at just who it was that elicited such feelings in him. He felt like he was choking, his throat blocked as Voldemort’s scent practically drowned his senses. Harry could nearly taste Voldemort’s thick arousal in the back of his throat, the scent almost viscous as he shut his eyes in effort to ignore it.

But it only made things _worse._

Harry moaned when Voldemort’s grip on his hip became painfully tight, his nails drawing blood as the other hand on his cock began to move. It was a slow pace, meant to tease and tantalize rather than push Harry over the edge.

It was more to prove a point, Harry knew. There would be no reason that Voldemort would be this patient when they were utterly alone.

“Look at yourself…look at how you unravel under my hands.” Harry’s eyes snapped open instinctively, lowering his gaze to watch Voldemort’s hand jerk and twist at his cock. It was erotic—it was _too_ much for him. He wanted to look away, to close his eyes and pretend that he was anywhere but there, that he didn’t enjoy the way Voldemort’s hands felt across his naked skin.

He didn’t want it. He _didn’t_. He should—

“My _touch_ is what has you writhing beneath me…” Voldemort licked up his neck before pressing his lips to Harry’s ear to whisper the sinful words. “My voice is what has you whimpering with _need,_ ” Voldemort hissed when Harry bucked his hips into the man’s hand, unable to stop himself when he felt himself edging closer to orgasm.

“My _soul_ is what holds you here.” Harry again bit his lip so hard it bled when Voldemort’s hand on his hip suddenly scratched up his side, a painful burn awakening something Harry did not wish to acknowledge.

“There is nowhere for you to go, no other place for you to be than in my bed.” Voldemort’s pace became brutal and Harry felt like he’d been thrown overboard, his senses overwhelmed by the sound of the Dark Lord’s own growl and his scent.

_Merlin, his scent._

It was like freshly brewed coffee—dark chocolate tossed into the drink. Harry could only watch how slick Voldemort’s hand became with his pre-cum, the fluid catching the light from the sconces in the room. It was vulgar—depraved how the sight of it only made the situation more dire and exciting.

How it made it more thrilling, made his brain foggy.

Harry didn’t realize he was moaning in earnest until he felt Voldemort’s chest vibrate with a pleased growl, the sound of it tipping Harry completely over the edge.

Harry came with a soft cry.

Harry could no longer keep his eyes open, finally disobeying his Alpha’s command in that instance to properly ride out his climax. Harry’s throat felt dry from how wide his mouth had opened, parted into a silent scream as he splattered over Voldemort’s hand until there was nothing left of himself to spill. He was panting heavily, completely spent as he tried to calm his racing heart—unable to ignore the reality of what they had done.

Of what Voldemort had made him do.

Harry pushed the miserable thought as far into the back of his mind as he could, unwilling to open the floodgate of self-loathing and disgust he felt coiling within him. His body was practically a boneless heap, total exhaustion settling into his bones from the aftermath. It was so intense, Harry was unable to stop himself from slumping in Voldemort’s firm grip.

The man’s body was _scalding_ , threatening to fan the flames Harry had only just seconds earlier, extinguished. He wanted to move away, to escape from the feeling of moisture between his legs, to hide the wetness trailing down his thighs, but his muscles were sluggish. It felt like he had run several laps rather than had the most intense orgasm of his life.

He didn’t resist when Voldemort lifted him into his arms, his body refusing to comply when the man carried him back to his throne. It looked blurred to Harry—the monochromatic color of the room making it difficult to discern just how the throne looked.

Had it been gold? Was it wooden? Was it made of stone? Harry was not sure at all at that precise moment. But what did it matter, really? There was no reason for him to debate the bloody texture of the chair when he had practically been—

Harry silenced the thought before it went any further, focusing instead on trying to squirm his way out of the man’s hold. It was tight, his hold so strong that it was almost impressive that Voldemort had such strength in his thin frame.

Harry never considered Voldemort could be just as physically strong as he was magically—that the arms carrying him back to the throne, and now, laying him gently on the cold stone of the throne, could be so powerful. It stoked something prideful in the back of his mind.

_That his Alpha could be so—_

Harry’s blood ran cold, something hot pulsing through his veins at the implication of his own thoughts. Voldemort was most certainly _not_ his Alpha. He did not _want_ this bond—he did not desire this connection. He never asked to house a piece of Voldemort’s soul and give up a piece of his own to assure Voldemort’s success against the Light.

Voldemort was his _enemy_.

“Don’t touch me!” Harry managed to sputter before Voldemort crowded him into the throne, leaning above him like some specter before seizing him by his leg and yanking it around his waist, and doing the same to the other.

Harry’s face was on fire, unsure of what to do when he felt Voldemort’s finger prod his arsehole with one long, clawed finger. He was moving too quickly for Harry to follow, still drunk on the high from his orgasm mere seconds earlier.

Voldemort’s finger felt sharp, the threat of it pumping adrenaline through Harry’s veins.

The man could literally rip him open.

“W-what are you--?” Harry hissed when Voldemort’s nail suddenly poked into him, his other hand gripping his thigh so tightly Harry would surely have bruises.

“Does it make you nervous how easily I can split you open?” Voldemort whispered, the red in his eyes trapping Harry’s own nervous gaze instantly. It was by far the dumbest question Harry had ever heard. He was more than nervous, he was bloody _petrified._

But he didn’t have time to voice his concerns before Voldemort whispered something foreign under his breath and shoved that very finger up his arse, the intrusion eliciting a startled cry from Harry’s lips. It burned despite how moist Harry still was from his earlier orgasm—the sensation of his walls wrapping around Voldemort’s fingers enough to make him squirm uncomfortably in Voldemort’s grip.

“Not enough, it seems, to silence those insolent thoughts, I see.”

And then Voldemort shoved a second finger, the stretch burning so intently that Harry could not stifle his cries when Voldemort’s nails prodded at his insides. His stomach twisted from the sensation, his mind fogging over with pain and pleasure when Voldemort’s scent suddenly assaulted him.

The smell was enough to soothe and fan Harry’s own arousal, to make his soft cock harden with his own excitement. Harry was absolutely terrified at his own reaction—his own rational mind warring with the beast inside him.

Voldemort’s eyes held a knowing gleam, as if they could read into Harry’s thoughts as he continued to push and prod inside of Harry’s arse for something—his typically impassive face riveted by whatever it was the man could see on Harry’s own face.

And just as Harry thought he could grow accustomed to the sensation, Voldemort was forcing a third finger inside, the stretch too much too fast for Harry to handle. Harry writhed and squirmed, reaching out to stop Voldemort’s unwanted intrusion while he still retained some sanity left, but his attempts failed.

Voldemort’s amused laugh was the only warning Harry had before his arms were pinned to his own chest, leaving him totally defenseless. Harry’s eyes widened in shock, unable to hide the fear swirling in the depths of his eyes.

Harry was at a loss at what to do. His panic and hysteria making his lips screw into a grimace as he tried to determine what to bloody _do._ When his struggles did not give him the answer he needed, Harry knew he was totally fucked.

So he did what he was best at—pissing the dark lord off. It was better to be tortured than to be forced to experience _this._

“What? Afraid you aren’t good enough to force me into submission by your own hand?” Harry grunted out, trying to ignore the pain of Voldemort’s nails practically scratching at his insides. It should have hurt more than it actually did—he should have felt like he was being shredded apart.

Had Voldemort done something to his own nails then? Had that been what he whispered under his breath?—

Voldemort merely rose a hairless brow at him, before twisting his fingers inside Harry _just so_.

Harry saw stars.

“You were saying?” Voldemort punctuated his words by plunging his fingers deeper inside Harry, hitting something that robbed all the words from Harry’s throat. Harry was groaning and moaning from the continuous assault, Voldemort’s fingers not letting up despite how dangerously close to the edge Harry was getting.

Harry didn’t know what that place inside him was—didn’t know it could feel that good, that it could be so bloody overwhelming. He felt like he was losing his bloody mind every single time Voldemort prodded at it.

Harry didn’t even feel the man’s nails anymore. The sounds leaving Harry’s lips nonsensical.

“I can’t quite make out what you’re saying. Care to repeat that?” Harry tried to gather his thoughts, screwing his lips to shape the words he wanted to speak, but Voldemort chose that instant to release the bruising grip on his thigh to play with Harry’s cock.

Harry choked on his words, feeling so close to orgasm that he was bucking into Voldemort’s fingers without regard for _who_ was fucking him with his fingers. He could care less at that precise second, the overwhelming pleasure and Voldemort’s comforting scent blindsiding him.

Just as he was nearing the edge, about to tip over, Voldemort abruptly removed his fingers from his arse. Harry was about to protest, to damn himself further, by demanding that the man finish what he started—

Harry screamed.

Voldemort plunged his cock inside him, the stretch nothing like the fingers that had been previously thrusting inside him. He struggled against the force keeping his hands still, trembling and whimpering when Voldemort did not wait for Harry to adjust.

His pace was brutal—the slickness of his insides not enough to make the intrusion less uncomfortable.

“I can make this quite painful, Harry.” Harry grimaced, his lips screwing into a painful line when he noted the way Voldemort’s lips twitched into a smirk at his response.

“T-take it _out_.” Harry grit out, his breath catching when Voldemort continued to jerk inside him, purposefully avoiding the spot inside Harry that had had him nearing the edge.

“I can rip screams from your lips all night if you wish _._ ”

Harry gasped when Voldemort squeezed Harry’s cock painfully with his hand, the grip tight enough to force another pained cry from his lips. “I can keep you on the cusp of lucidity for _hours_ as I take you like this.”

Harry believed him. The mirth in Voldemort’s eyes enough evidence that Voldemort would enjoy every second at Harry’s expense.

“ _Crucio_.”

And then Harry was screaming, shouting so loudly from the tops of his lungs that it hardly mattered to him that Voldemort groaned appreciatively above him. Harry’s flesh felt as if it was being ripped apart—his vision completely obscured by his own unshed tears as he tried to hold them back.

He refused to cry—not in front of this man. He absolutely refused to seem weak.

“You flutter so pleasantly around me, Harry. But this is not what you fear, is it?” Voldemort’s voice was labored, the only other sign that the man was not as unaffected as he made himself out to be. “No, pain you expect. This is what you _want._ ”

Harry continued to scream through the agony of the torture curse as Voldemort fucked him for a few more seconds before ending the curse abruptly. Harry slumped against the stone throne, trying to calm his breaths as he watched Voldemort continue to move within him.

He felt each push and pull on his walls—the discomfort of it was nothing compared to being cruciated, but it was no picnic either. Harry had to admit that Voldemort was not wrong that he much preferred the pain of this—that it kept him grounded and to himself. That his mind remained blissfully free of the cloud of desire that Voldemort’s scent and touch forced on him.

“But _pleasure_ …that is what truly frightens you.” And then Voldemort jerked inside him, slamming the strange spot inside him so hard that Harry did not have the time to stifle his cry of pleasure. It was like a punch in the gut, Voldemort’s painful grip on his cock shifting to a gentler and teasing hold as the hand played with Harry’s cock.

Harry was overwhelmed, his senses thrown completely by the abrupt switch from pain to pleasure. Voldemort was slamming into the spot in earnest then, seemingly emboldened by Harry’s cries of pleasure.

“St- _ah!”_ If Harry could move his hands, he would have been scrambling to find his balance—to do _anything_ to ground himself as Voldemort drowned him in the thick smell of his own arousal and his touch. The muscles of his arse clenching tightly around Voldemort’s cock each time it plunged into him, filing him up and milking a pleased moan from Harry’s lips.

_Merlin, it felt so good._

Harry wanted to die. He wanted to drown in the sensation and die all at the same time.

And then he felt Voldemort’s swell suddenly within him, the only warning Harry had before Voldemort’s cock began to slam more furiously into Harry’s prostate; his hand brutally jerking Harry’s cock until Harry came with a pleasured scream.

All Harry could see was white and red, Voldemort’s glittering eyes on his until Harry had no cum left. He was oversensitive, utterly spent as Voldemort continued to fuck into him until his cock was so swollen that it could no longer move. Harry felt full, split completely on Voldemort’s cock as Voldemort’s seed filled him to the brim.

Harry was more than a little grateful in that instance that Omega males could not get pregnant then. Trying to calm the rapid beating of his heart as Voldemort knotted him for what felt like an eternity. It was at least one less threat to the many Voldemort presented to him.

Harry was relieved when it finally ended—when the man slipped his cock from inside him. But that feeling was short-lived. The predatory gleam in Voldemort’s eyes enough to make Harry’s insides hot and cold as he scooped Harry back into his arms.

He felt utterly trapped.

“Did you think we were done? How… _naïve_.”

 


	11. Contract

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I don’t know what I am doing, but here it is. I hope you like. This is a little outside of my usual, but it was what the prompt made me think of for some reason lmao.
> 
> Prompt: “I left everything for this, I left it all...for you!” + Harrymort
> 
> Rating: M for suggestive themes
> 
> Warnings: Suggestive sexual themes

 

“I left everything for this, I left it all…for you!” Harry hissed, stepping around the desk, to confront Voldemort. The man was sitting comfortably on his chair, seemingly relaxed but his eyes told a different story.  "You lied to me, you promised me that you would stop."

Harry could not repress his scowl when Voldemort failed to respond. The only indication that he had noticed Harry's words at all the subtle raise of his brow and the warm emotion that flashed behind his eyes. The emotion flashed too quickly for Harry to discern--but it was more than enough for Harry to know the man was listening.

_Good._

_"_ You think that enslaving muggles will change anything? That taking their children away will somehow fix the inherent issues in the Britain?" Harry continued, growing more and more incensed when Voldemort turned his gaze away from him and focused on the papers on his desk.

Harry was more than tempted to slam his hand on the desk and scatter the parchment--to fling everything from the small statue of the Basilik on the desk to the ink well right by Voldemort's right arm to the ground. But Harry took a deep breath instead, knowing that acting like a child would not get him what he wanted.

"This is about as bloody stupid as Dumbledore's plan to sacrifice me, you know." Harry said casually, repressing a smirk when Voldemort stiffened, and snapped his gaze back to his.

If looks could kill, Harry was sure he would be dead three times over. But Harry was not afraid of this--the man would do nothing. Not when Harry was a precious Horcrux. The man was forced to listen and was forced to deal with his antics.

Even if it seemed more often than not that Harry lacked control in this relationship.

"I fail to see how speaking that  _filth's_ name is going to endear me to your ridiculous idea, Harry." Voldemort stated then, the heat in his eyes enough to make flowers wilt under the intensity. But Harry was no flower, and he met Voldemort's glare with one of his own.

"Well, I wouldn't be saying his name if someone would  _sodding_  listen to me." Harry shot back, snapping his hand on Voldemort's wrist when the man made to reach for his wand tucked comfortably in his robes. "Honestly, I am not asking for much. Just stop enslaving the muggles and at least, allow some of the kinder ones to visit their children."

Harry tried to reason, but gauging from the stubborn set on Voldemort's jaw, the man was not having any of that.

"You are overstepping your authorit--"

" _No_ , I am not some useless pawn you can order around. I have just as much say on how we run this empire as you do." Harry leaned forward, closing the short space between their faces, to press their foreheads together.

The small contact was enough to shoot heat up Harry's spine, but Harry ignored it in favor of staring deeply into Voldemort's eyes. Noting the way Voldemort cycled through several different emotions before settling on anger--his hand suddenly snatching roughly at Harry's dark hair.

Harry hissed, his breath fanning across Voldemort's lips, but he otherwise did not resist. If Harry fought back, Voldemort would take that as indication to take his fill. The start of a game that Harry and Voldemort often played with many stakes. Voldemort thrilled when Harry was particularly mouthy, his sadism peaking through the red of his eyes when Harry simply said the wrong thing at the right time.

So he held himself back, allowing Voldemort's fingers to tear some of the hair from his head when he suddenly clenched his grip.

"Oh?" Voldemort questioned, his eyes bright with intrigue as he stared unflinchingly into Harry's eyes. "Are you now?"

Voldemort's lips curved into a smirk, the pressure on Harry's hair drawing a soft cry from his lips that he failed to repress.

_Bastard._

_"_ I am a part of your  _soul."_ Harry seethed, gasping when Voldemort suddenly licked his bottom lip--Voldemort's forked tongue tracing so gently on the skin that Harry did not know how to react. Sadism he understood--violence predictable when in the man's presence. Harry had learned the art, and even appreciated it when employed the proper way.

But gentleness?

Harry was floored, but he did not let it derail him. Speaking through the ticklish sensation of Voldemort's tongue licking at his skin.

"I know you better than anyone else. I sacrificed it all for  _you_." Harry continued, shuddering when Voldemort took his bottom lip into his mouth, his eyes still trained intently on Harry's own green eyes, before releasing the flesh.

"You promised that you would take a more...relaxed route to power. That you would not sacrifice the lives of too many for control, but y--"

Harry groaned when Voldemort kissed him, his lips soft and gentle over his own. Voldemort tasted like coffee--bitter and sweet on Harry's tongue. He couldn't help but open his mouth at the expert way Voldemort pressed his lips against his own--thrown once more by just how bloody gentle the man was being--to then break the kiss. Cutting it short before the strangely delicate press could grow into something more heated.

Harry whined at the loss, his lips cold now without the pleasant warmth of Voldemort's mouth on his.

He hated how much of an affect the man had on him--their bond stupidly strong and unbreakable. One not created from love, but out of convenience. A marriage that all of the Wizarding world had hoped would temper the violence of Voldemort's bid for power.

Though, thinking back, Harry wondered just whose brilliant idea this even was. The plan had been markedly successful, but it still pained Harry to know that he had given so much up just to ensure that this plan worked.

" _Hush, my soul."_ Voldemort purred in parseltongue, his grip on Harry's head tightening once more. "Don't you trust my judgment?" Voldemort asked, and before Harry could retort and tell him that in fact he did  _not_ trust him, Voldemort slipped his fingers over his clothed thigh--the heat of it enough to silence all his thoughts in that moment.

"I understand your...concerns." Voldemort stated while kneading Harry's thigh, the gesture spreading heat all the way from the tip of Harry's toes to the top of his head. "I will consider them, but first..."

Harry forgot entirely what he was even upset about in the first place, Voldemort’s unspoken promise and touch overtaking him.


	12. Whiplash

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AN: I find that I was resistant to writing something sentimental and angsty for some reason. So I bring you this, and I hope you enjoy. I don’t even know where this drabble was going, but here it is lmao. Please excuse my typos.
> 
> Prompt: "I almost lost you" + Tomarry
> 
> Rating: T
> 
> Warnings: Harry’s potty mouth and tension.

 

“I almost lost you.” Tom’s voice was strangled, a strange emotion palpable in his eyes that threw Harry completely for the loop. Granted, it should not have come as such as a surprise  considering he had nearly died trying to stop the idiot from doing whatever ritual it was that he was doing. Harry knew he should not have stepped between Tom and the strange magic he was conducting, but there was something in the boy’s eyes that had frightened Harry.

A strange gleam in Tom’s eyes that reminded Harry too painfully of the monster he had left behind in his own time. He had acted before he even thought his plan through–instinct throwing him directly in the line of fire.

Harry could not recall much else after that, and gauging from the Tom’s grimace, it hadn’t been good.

“You  _imbecile!”_ Tom hissed, the strange emotion that had overtaken the teen unraveling and quickly shifting to rage as he crowded Harry further into his bed, his back pressing flush against the bed’s headboard. Harry did not know when exactly he had been brought back to his dormitory or when he had been healed.

There was no real way to tell how long he had been in bed, seeing as he was in the dungeons rather than his old Gryffindor rooms. But Harry’s thoughts were cut short by the fury in Tom’s face and the proximity of Tom’s body to his own.

“Are you so reckless that you throw yourself into danger without any thought to the consequences? What if I had gone too far with the spell, Harry?” Tom hissed, his tone soft but the steel of it enough to make Harry wince visibly.

“You fool. I could have killed you.” Tom was so close that Harry could count each individual lash on eyes, his too hot breath fanning against his face, as he planted his hands on either side of Harry’s face.

“But I didn’t die. I am aliv–”

“By the skin of your teeth.” Tom interjected, his proximity doing little to calm Harry’s rapidly beating heart. It felt like it was about to burst, but Harry ignored it to focus on Tom’s words instead.

Digesting them first and then glaring hard into Tom’s eyes.

“I wouldn’t have been in danger in the first place if you hadn’t been messing with dark stuff, Riddle.” Harry started, watching what little composure Tom had shatter, before continuing. Recalled in that second that Tom was a Legilimens, and pointed his gaze immediately away to glare instead at the single curl pressed against the boy’s forehead.

“And why do you even care anyway? You’re not my bloody keeper. Hell, you don’t even know me.” Harry was breathing harshly by the end of his tirade.

“Oh,  _Harry_. I’m more than your keeper.” Like smoke, Tom’s rage seemed to evaporate into nothing. The hard glint of his eyes, the ruddy hue of his cheeks, and the firm line of his lips smoothing into a perfectly composed mask. He looked like he had never been upset in the first place–like if Harry and Tom had just been having a perfectly civil conversation rather than discussing the fact that Harry had almost  _died_.

It was offputting, and Harry did not know how to react when Tom seemed to lean in further. His face a centimeter away from his own, mingling their breathing space and making Harry squirm.

Harry tried not to let his discomfort show, glaring up at Riddle’s passive face before gathering his wits to respond to understand what Tom had even meant by that.

“I don’t know what you’re–”

“Do not insult my intelligence.” Tom promptly cut Harry off, a smile manifesting on the boy’s face that set the hairs on Harry’s neck on edge. It was unlike the smiles he gave his professors–all mild mannered and respectfully reverent. This was a smile that reminded Harry too closely of the monster in his time–of the boy that asked too many strange questions and devoured those answers like a snake swallowing its quarry.

It was predatory, but Harry was convinced that this was by virtue of him knowing too much about this boy’s future than anything else. He hadn’t intended to return and spare the boy’s life–more interested in ensuring that the world he had returned from simply never  _was_. But when the moment had arrived–the boy sleeping peacefully in his cot in the decrepit orphanage, Harry could not utter the spell.

It was dismaying to know that he did not hate Riddle enough to speak the words. Let alone, to lift his wand and point it at his sleeping face. But Voldemort had yet to rise–even if he had already murdered three by this point in the timeline if Harry was recalling things correctly.

It would have made more sense to simply kill him when he was still a boy–before the monster had reared its head and snapped its teeth. But Harry would never be able to murder a child, even if that child would become the cruelest wizard to exist come to power since Grindlewald.

“You are helplessly drawn to me. I can hardly make a move without you watching me so very closely.” Riddle spoke, his eyes glittering with something primal that reminded Harry faintly of the eyes of his pet Nagini in the future. It was hungry and curious–shrewd and calculating.

It came as no surprise at all that Tom had noticed this, but it still made something clench in Harry’s gut.

“I wonder whythat is.” Riddle continued before pressing his nose against his own, his glasses a strange pressure on his face. Harry could feel the boy’s hair tickling his forehead–his scar twinging warningly at the contact, but otherwise not exploding with pain.

It was a relief in and of itself to know that their connection was not as it once was. It would be incredibly suspect if every single time Riddle accidentally brushed passed him, he was screaming in pain. But the twinge was enough to make him jolt, the heat of Riddle’s skin doing little for his peace of mind.

And then, Tom smiled. The gesture easily setting his nerves on fire–his mind scrambling for something brilliant to say at the mischief Harry found lurking in the boy’s eyes.

“You’re  _obsessed_ with me, Harry.” Tom teased, and Harry yelped when Tom pressed his lips lightly against his own. The pressure so soft that if Harry had not had his eyes open, he would not have known at all that Riddle had leaned forward to kiss him.

He failed to respond, his mind blanching when Riddle leaned away, and grinned at his heated face.

Harry was tempted to pinch himself to gauge if this was real at all. If he had not somehow landed in an alternate universe and landed in a time where Riddle in fact had kissed him. Because this could not  _possibly_ be real.

“Crushes are fairly innocent. But this one was almost the death of you.” Riddle murmured, and Harry opened and closed his mouth several times to speak. He was flabbergasted, his shock eliciting a soft laugh from the boy still pressed too closely to him on the bed.

“T-this is entirely inappropriate, you almost  _killed_ me.” Harry protested, just realizing that he had arms and planting them firmly against Tom’s shoulders.

“I’m well aware, my stupid little lion.” Tom laughed, before pulling away entirely from Harry’s personal space. “We will discuss this later, I find that I no longer feel the need to skin you alive for your stupidity.”

Harry watched him with blatant shock as Tom walked out of the room, the door closing with a click. The sound of the door lock echoing through the silent bedroom, alerting him to the fact that he could not escape.

It was only after several minutes of staring disbelievingly at the door that Harry realized the weight of Tom’s words. His palms began to sweat, his heart rate increasing to the point that Harry was sure it was near heart failure.

Harry was no longer a lion. He was a Slytherin now. Harry could not recall an instance in their interactions where Harry could have possibly let this slip unless…

 _I’m fucked_ , Harry realized then, his mind putting two and two together. The predatory gleam in Tom’s eyes making all the more sense now. Harry had been foolish enough to look into the boy’s eyes–Tom had to have seen something.

_Fuck._

Harry didn’t know what he was going to do, but he’d think of something. He simply  _had_ to before Tom returned.


	13. Metamorphosis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I...don't think this was what my requester had in mind when they gave me this prompt. My imagination sort of has a mind of its own. I hope you all like it anyway. There are likely typos.
> 
> Prompt: "I am different now" + Harrymort 
> 
> Rating: E
> 
> Warnings: Dubious consent and Explicit Sexual Content

"I am different now." Voldemort stated, and Harry froze, unable to comprehend just what the man was saying at all.

 

 _I am different now?_ Harry wanted to scoff, his face twisting into a scowl as he struggled against his bonds. Harry knew the man was lying, there was simply no way that the most powerful sorcerer could erase the damage he had done--and would continue to do--Harry thought.

 

Harry had been confined for several months since his capture, but he still retained some sort of agency. He wasn't insane, and if Voldemort thought that he was stupid enough to believe any of the words he said, he was clearly not as intelligent as he thought.

 

Harry would _never_ give in. This was merely another way to break Harry's own desire to resist, and he refused to be cowed by words wrapped in deceit and dulcet tones.

 

" _Liar!_ " Harry shouted, jerking against the ropes biting harshly into his arms as Voldemort stepped further into the room, slamming the door shut behind him and vanishing it with a subtle wave of his arm. It reminded Harry then of just how grandiose the room was--of the decadence of the bed he currently lied on and of the tasteful decorations in the room.

 

It was easily the most lavish place Harry had stayed in in his entire life. Without a doubt, beating the opulence of Malfoy Manor's own rooms. Not that Harry had much opportunity to see those rooms, of course. His greatest concern at the time was getting himself and his friends out alive--leaving little room for Harry to contemplate the furniture.

 

But now, all Harry could really do was stare at these familiar four walls. The white walls melding perfectly with the emerald color of his sheets and the dark mahogany of the bed frame.

 

It was all perfectly paired--planned and executed. As if Voldemort himself had hired a designer to ensure that this room was nothing short of perfect.

 

And wasn't that funny? That Voldemort would hire a designer for a _prisoner?_

 

 

Harry was promptly cut off from his thoughts when Voldemort spoke again, his face lined with frustration.

 

"For what purpose would I lie to you, Harry?" Voldemort asked, and Harry strained in his bonds for a moment before sneering at the man. He didn't want to talk--content to be left to himself and the walls that sometimes whispered to him before he succumbed to slumber. It should have concerned him that he was hearing voices, but what did Harry care?

 

Voldemort had brought him the severed heads of his friends on a pike early on in his captivity. There was simply nothing left for him to fight for but for himself. For his own pride and peace of mind.

 

And perhaps, for the few that he hoped had managed to survive.

 

"I don't know, I don't think you really need a reason to be a monster." Harry mocked, and Voldemort froze for a second, his red eyes flashing with something Harry could identify as irritation before shuttering the emotion away quickly.

 

It made Harry grin.

 

"Did that offend you, _Tom?_ To know that you are a shadow of who you once were? That you are nothing but a creature that preys on the innocent?" Harry laughed when Voldemort stepped further into the room, his magic cackling in the air alerting Harry at just how angered the man was.

 

"Do not force my ha--"

 

"Or what?" Harry interrupted, a smirk dancing along his lips when Voldemort stopped beside him on the bed, his stature imposing. But Harry was no longer intimidated. He was more than a bit accustomed to the man's scare tactics. "You're going to kill me? _The horror._ "

 

Harry was laughing so hard that tears gathered at the corners of his eyes, his chest aching and his throat tight with the force of it.

 

Harry could admit that he sounded a little unhinged, but again, what did it matter now? The war had been lost and now, all that Harry really had was Voldemort's unwanted company and this room. The same four bloody walls that often whispered to both Harry's dismay and delight.

 

The monster didn't even allow him the peace of speaking to anyone else. Not even the house elves that conjured his three daily meals were allowed to appear before him.

 

He was all alone.

 

"There are things worse than death, Harry Potter." Voldemort began, and Harry could not repress a flinch when one of Voldemort's fingers pressed to the skin of his cheek. The contact no longer triggered their strange connection, but it elicited a strange pleasant feeling in his gut. It was unsettling in its intensity, the heat of it dancing across his skin and spreading through his body like some sort of infectious disease.

 

But Harry ignored that, knowing well that Voldemort was only doing that to disturb him. Nothing ever came out of such an innocent touch, and Voldemort, for all his monstrosity, never did more that smooth his fingers across his skin.

 

Curious, but never threatening.

 

It was the only reprieve Harry had in this world. He doubted he would have much left if the man had decided to do more than simply warn him with such a powerful connection at his command.

 

"You've already seen to that, _My Lord._ " Harry mocked, before gasping when Voldemort's fingers ran along the curve of his cheek bone, and lower to dig his nails gently against his neck.

 

Harry faintly wondered if the man could feel just how rapidly his heart was beating--if he could hear the strange thoughts in the back of Harry's mind whispering for _more_ with its strangely familiar lilt. The hissing sounding a lot like--

 

"No, I have not. I have granted you a better life than you would have lived should I have _desired_ your suffering." Voldemort replied in turn, his touch questing when Harry unconsciously leaned into his prodding hands.

 

Harry hated this.

 

"You think this is mercy? That you're doing me a favor by locking me in some gilded cage and giving your little bird some attention?" Harry asked, and then sighing when Voldemort's slid his fingers lower down Harry's neck until it teased at his exposed collar bones--his shirt lying somewhere in the room, neglected.

 

Discarded by Harry earlier in the evening when he had tried, and ultimately failed, to fall asleep.

 

"More than you deserve. But I find that I am a _changed_ man." Voldemort's tone was different then, a grin breaking out on his inhuman face setting Harry on edge. Since Harry's capture, the man had barely shown emotion aside from anger and displeasure.

 

Harry could not recall an instance where it had been anything but--his back bearing the weight of those memories. He had far too many scars on his back from the curses Voldemort had launched at him for mouthing off earlier in his captivity, and it seemed that Voldemort had somehow gained some other strange idea, guessing from the continued trace of Voldemort's nails on his skin.

 

He shuddered with both revulsion and pleasure when Voldemort moved them lower still, the nail biting into his nipple as it went.

 

"I cannot make the entire world my own with the same tactics I had employed here in Britain. Your role as the Boy-Who-Lived is far from finished, and you will see to it that my bid for power is successful." Voldemort continued and Harry gasped when the connection between them sprang to life once more--Voldemort's magic so thick in the air that Harry was afraid he might even choke on it.

 

"I have all the time in the world to make you yield, Harry Potter. I have already come this far in just a few months, imagine what would come of this in a few more _years_." Harry melted into Voldemort's touch, his body quivering with disgust and delight when sparks danced up his spine--his back arching further into Voldemort's touch the longer the man tapped at their connection.

 

Harry's body felt like a live wire--an exposed nerve that continued to coax violent reactions from his body. This was the worst sort of violation--the kind that Harry himself had never experienced before.

 

It was strange feeling oddly betrayed by this--thinking that this man would never stoop so low as to abuse this connection for gain. And he wanted to laugh at himself then for that silly thought because _of course_ Voldemort would abuse it.

 

The man would never change--once a monster, always a monster.

 

And then Harry was crying out, the pleasure across his skin so overwhelming that he could hardly think past the thrumming of his heart, the shortness of his breath, and the texture of Voldemort's hands on his nipple.

 

The digits light--like feathers dancing across naked skin--but sufficient to allow Voldemort to manipulate their connection as he saw fit.

 

" _Different now_. More like you've evolved, Tom. Become more of a monster than you already wer--"

 

Harry groaned when Voldemort embedded his nails into his skin before slashing them down his chest--the sting and the heat enough to make him see white. The pain did little to ground him--the delicious way that it melded with the heat in his blood causing something in his stomach clench.

 

A pressure build.

 

Harry wanted to laugh and cry all at once, but he shoved those emotions back. Unwilling to shatter like glass beneath his gaze.

 

"Different is a matter of degree, and _Lord Voldemort_ certainly knows this subtlety." Voldemort stated, his eyes dancing with amusement when Harry arched and writhed from the pleasant feelings overtaking his thoughts.

 

The man's touch stripping him bare and eating away at the hatred curled in Harry's gut.

 

"And _you_ will be different too. A golden boy no more. The champion of light, erased."

 

The promise there was as heady as the ecstasy coursing through his veins, and Harry wondered then, with his spine bending and his mouth splitting open, if he would truly survive this unscathed. If he would remain unchanged as he hoped he would.

 

But those thoughts were overtaken by Voldemort's overwhelming magic--his nails sliding further along his exposed skin to tug at the edge of his checkered boxers.

 

The fingers both a threat and a promise.

 

"Is that what you truly think?" Harry began, shuddering when Voldemort's nails traced lightly against the thin material. "That you will break me?"

 

Harry jerked his hips into Voldemort's hand, unable to resist the way Voldemort's prodded and teased at his connection, the fingers shooting sparks up Harry's spine. Driven mad and near blind at just a simple press of those sharp nails through the thin barrier.

 

"Certainly. Just _look at you_." Voldemort explained, a smirk tugging at his lips when he slipped a finger beneath the waistband, and Harry jerked. A sharp breath escaping his lips, unable to repress just how affected he was by Voldemort's touch.

 

"I've barely touched you at all and you look as if you're about to come undone." Voldemort mocked, his red eyes trapping Harry's own.

 

"But would you want to? If you've changed as much as you say you have what success is there in breaking me in two? That's something a brute would do." Harry replied, groaning when Voldemort delved his hand further inside to play with the new skin, his fingers questing and his face thoughtful as he did.

 

"I-It's easy for someone to break someone down. But to _make_ something out from what is already there. Is that not true mastery?" Harry looked away when Voldemort's fingers were suddenly on his cock, his nails scratching from the base down to his leaking head. Harry tried not to lose track of his thoughts--clinging to them as desperately as he could, knowing that he allowed himself to be overwhelmed he'd fail to steer Voldemort away from his dangerous goal.

 

"Oh? And what is it that you know of mastery, boy?" Voldemort sounded curious, and Harry swallowed first before answering, ignoring just how delicious Voldemort's fingers felt as they continued to play with his skin.

 

"I know that a _true_ master can make one submit without the need to break their servants. That a _Lord_ is only deserving of his title if he can inspire true loyalty." Harry sighed when Voldemort's touch grew firmer, his hand taking Harry's length entirely into his palm before giving his cock a squeeze. Harry felt like he was going to climax from that alone, his mouth snapping open into a silent scream when Voldemort's magic swelled at the same time.

 

His power settled into the crevices in Harry's own soul--coaxing at the dormant shard within his own body that wanted to reunite with Voldemort's sliver of a soul.

 

It drove Harry wild, his eyes fluttering closed for several seconds, before opening them to look up at Voldemort.

 

"Oh, don't worry. There will be plenty of time for me to show you how wrong you are." Voldemort whispered, the determination alight in his gaze causing Harry smirk internally.

 

Voldemort had taken the bait.

 

_Good._

 

And then, before Harry could even properly protest, Voldemort's magic flared and his hand began to move--the friction of his dry palm and Harry's sensitive flesh enough to push Harry over the edge.

 

Harry came so hard he lost sense of the world around him. His body trembling with the force of his release, his thoughts jumbled.

 

"This is merely a _taste_ of what I can provide if you should obey." Voldemort hissed, his hand still gripping tightly around Harry's softened cock.

 

"I thank you for such an...illuminating idea, _Harry."_ Voldemort chuckled, before turning away with a dramatic flare of his robes. The bonds restraining Harry to the bed dissipating just as Voldemort flickered from existence--the only memory that he had even been there at all, the moisture pooling between Harry's thighs.

 

It was a dangerous game Harry was playing. But the Dark Lord was certainly right about one thing.

 

Voldemort had changed, and the desire Harry had glimpsed in his eyes was definitely evidence of that.


	14. Teenage Angst

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well, this was a wild experiment. I wanted to write some banter but this didn’t turn out that way. I don’t even know what is going on here either way. Harry ends up in the past without any memory of who he was or where he came from. This is set in Sixth year. If this doesn’t make sense or if there are typos, I am sorry. I didn’t sleep much last night ;A;
> 
> Prompt: “If you don’t want to talk about what happened then say so. Don’t just lie and say it’s fine.” + Tomarry
> 
> Warning: Language, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Tom being an arse
> 
> Rating: T

“If you don’t want to talk about what happened then say so. Don’t just lie and say it’s fine.” Harry muttered, staring at Tom’s hunched back as he labored over one of his newest experiments; standing regally over the table. Harry wasn’t quite sure what this newest project entailed, but gauging from the boy’s tense shoulders, it had to be something arduous and time consuming.

A something, Harry noted, that had supremely pissed the teen off.

Several moments passed without answer; the shuffling of vials that only sound in the deafening silence that had fallen between them.

“Riddle?” Harry tried again, his curiosity and substantial disregard for his own safety urging him to prod. He knew it was stupid, and he begrudgingly conceded, reckless. But Harry could not just leave this be. 

When Harry had been sorted into Slytherin, it had been Tom that had taken him under his wing. Literally swooping in with a reassuring smile when Harry had nearly had an aneurysm that very afternoon.

The shock of being sorted into Slytherin too much for him.

Harry had been sure he would be placed in Gryffindor–recalling then, how a strange voice shouted spitefully that his sorting had been  _wrong._ That he in fact did not belong in Slytherin, but in Gryffindor. It didn’t make much sense to Harry then, knowing little about his past, let alone about Hogwarts. He had been so overwhelmed by his conflicting emotions that it was certainly a relief when Riddle had come. His soothing voice and dark eyes immediately settling the tumultuous emotions fighting for dominance in his mind.

It had made the transition markedly easier. Although his true identity still eluded him even to this day. 

His memories of his own past were murky at best. A total shot in the dark. Short fragments such as his first name and latent talents easy to recall. 

But that was the extent of his knowledge, and any attempt he made of doing more to uncover his mysterious past, usually led to more questions than actual answers. 

And pain. Excruciating and debilitating pain.

For some reason Harry had yet to decipher, any attempt made to uncover more than simple memories lead to crippling migraines. The agony, at first, manageable for a few short seconds before exploding with sharp pangs--the pulsing on his forehead so particularized that Harry could almost predict when he had gone too far with his recollections. The area where his strange scar lied twinging as if in warning.

It was easily the most painful thing Harry had ever experienced. And perhaps the sole reason he made no substantial progress with uncovering where he came from. 

He wanted to know how he had acquired the scar on his forehead. Learn about what his family was like--if he even had one at all. To uncover the secrets of the nightmares that plagued him at night, but could never recall. 

To decipher just what the bloody hell the name Voldemort even meant.

But there was no helping things. He had to let things lie--even if it went contrary to him to just leave this alone.

Harry was drawn away from his thoughts by the absence of movement. The clatter of vials being moved ceasing.

There was a pregnant pause, and then Harry heard rather than saw Riddle set the vials down. It was the only warning Harry had before Riddle rounded on him; the teen moving so quickly that Harry barely had enough time to take a step back. Riddle’s arm narrowly missing his side by mere seconds when he had turned to survey him.

“What makes you think I wish to speak to you?” Tom intoned, rage so palpable on his face that Harry was sure he’d melt from the intensity.

It was admittedly frightening to be underneath the teen’s intense scrutiny, but Harry did not wither despite the impulse screaming for him to shrink back into the confines of his mind.

He was no coward.

Tom may be an arse, but he wasn’t  _dangerous._ To his knowledge, at least.

The teen was certainly dark, but that was not evidence of anything. There were plenty of students his year that were questionable. If anything, considering the current state of things in the outside world, Harry was the last to even judge in the first place. Since being sorted into Slytherin, he had learned more than he needed to know about the prejudices harbored for his house.

Slytherins, from what Harry had gathered were notorious. And the Gryffindors certainly made sure to let him know of it. Their slurs and rude remarks almost commonplace now.

Though, in all fairness, his housemates were  _wankers_. There was perhaps one or two that were at least decent. Riddle among those. 

Though decent didn’t necessarily mean nice. 

“Well, you like me enough to sit beside me for meals.” Harry said lamely, only just realizing how piss poor his reasoning was. But it was honestly the best he had. Riddle was quite the gentleman outside of class, but within his actual house...well, Riddle could be a little intense. 

It was definitely a good sign if Riddle could tolerate you in a private setting. And although sitting at breakfast, lunch, and dinner was not exactly private--the discussions they had amongst themselves at the table certainly was. 

And Riddle, for some god awful reason, always sat beside him. Rarely, if ever, did Tom actually speak to him past usual pleasantries. But it was markedly better than his aloof regard for his other peers.

It had secretly pleased him to be so special. 

And now that he actually voiced such a thing, it definitely didn’t sound all that impressive. In fact, Harry thought with embarrassment, it sounded a bit sad. But it was too late to take the words back. 

He would just have to roll with it and see what happened.

“Hardly indicative of anything.” Riddle scoffed, his rage abating as he continued to stare rather intensely at Harry. The darkness in his eyes reminding Harry of the Forbidden Forest at night–an abyss that devoured all light that dared near it. The faint light from the lantern the grounds keeper snuffing out almost instantly when setting food inside the obsidian pool.

It was both fascinating and horrifying all at once.

Harry tried not to fidget under the teen’s scrutiny, clenching his hands into fists when he noted that they had begun to shake. His nerves frayed and his discomfort mounting with each passing second.

“But you  _like_ me. You hardly spare the other Slytherins a glance. Except when you’re making demands.” Harry insisted, uncaring of the fact that Riddle had yet to step back.

Riddle paused, his eyes widening fractionally in mild surprise before smoothing away into a passive expression. His eyes swirling with some unnamed emotion that Harry struggled to explain.

A short pause.

And then Riddle smiled at him–a simple curve of the lips, but enough to shock Harry to the marrow of his bones. It reminded Harry of a hungry predator; the sudden stretching of the teen’s lips when Harry could not stop himself from swallowing audibly, making him tense.

Harry could practically see the cogs in the teen’s brain running.

It didn’t look good at  _all._

“Why do you even care,  _Harry_?” Tom purred, and Harry blanched. His mind screaming at him to move when Riddle stepped forward and shortened the space between them. “I thought I was an  _arse_ , as you so eloquently put it. You seemed rather adamant of this this morning.”

Harry did not know what to do. His eyes as wide as saucers when Riddle stopped a couple centimeters in front of him–towering easily above Harry’s much shorter stature.

Riddle then raised a mocking brow, and that snapped Harry out of his shock.

Harry scowled, discarding his anxiety for the moment; ignoring the way his glasses slipped slightly out of place on his nose, before squaring his shoulders.

“You  _are_. But you seemed upset. More so than usual. And then you even lied to my fac–” Harry began, but was cut off by Riddle’s hand reaching out to push Harry’s glasses back into place. The gesture so innocent and sudden that Harry was derailed completely from his train of thought.

Nervously, Harry swallowed–all too aware of Riddle’s seemingly innocuous gesture; repressing a shiver when Riddle’s fingers lightly pressed against his forehead before detracting entirely.

“You were saying?” Riddle teased, snapping Harry out of his stupor.

Harry cleared his throat, and then gathered his composure as quickly as he could. His cheeks burning, all while pointedly ignoring the way Riddle’s lips curled up in amusement.

_Tosser._

“Why did you lie? And so poorly at that?” Harry tried again, and he watched the way Tom’s eyebrows shot up, his lips still twisted into that stupid grin.

“Because I wanted to.”

Harry gaped, his eyes widening in shock at Riddle’s very blithe response.

_Seriously!?_

“Are you sodding kiddin–”

“No. It was just so remarkably easy. I was curious to see just how you’d react. And  _my_ , it was certainly something.” Riddle interrupted smoothly, his tone dropping so low that Harry felt his palms begin to sweat. The octave in combination with the heat of Riddle’s gaze making his stomach clench unpleasantly.

Harry did not know what to make of this, and thus, ignored both his own strange reactions and Riddle’s own behavior. Unwilling to give power to this unease. To even put a name to this strange thing happening between them.

“You’re such a prick, Riddle.” Harry retorted, stepping back…only to press against the smooth edges of a desk.

_When did I–_

“Don’t you want to know why I am upset,  _Harry_?” Riddle coaxed, one perfectly shaped brow lifting up in question. His tone light-hearted and seemingly innocent.

Harry didn’t like his tone, nor the glint in the boy’s eyes.

Harry wasn’t the most observant. Easily able to name a series of other students his year that could put two and two together without much pomp and circumstance. But he didn’t need to be a genius nor the most astute to know that this definitely stank of trouble.

Harry could admit that he was curious–more than he’d like considering how rare it was for the teen to be so open with anyone.

But he couldn’t help how wary he felt about Tom. The teen’’s glittering onyx eyes and his grin rather worrisome.

“I find your sudden generosity suspicious.” Harry cautioned after staring at Riddle for several minutes, unable to mask his grimace when Riddle cocked his head to one side, his gaze flickering down to slowly trail up his body. The way with which Tom watched him almost indecent.

Harry tried not to shudder at that, Riddle’s gaze almost like a physical touch, when his perusal finally stopped on his face. His intense black eyes capturing Harry’s own wide, green ones.

It was as if Riddle was trying to pry some secret out of Harry’s head.

“As you should.” Tom replied in turn before stepping closer still, bridging the small gap Harry had created seconds earlier.

It was all the incentive Harry needed to finally convince himself that he needed to leave.

“I think I’m just going to go.” Harry started, pausing for a moment to collect his bearings before continuing. “You can stay here and sulk all day if you want.”

Harry made to leave, shifting his gaze away from Tom’s creepy face to the exit.

It was in that split second that Tom struck.

Harry gasped, unable to react appropriately when Tom shoved him back against the desk, the hands on either side of Harry’s hips boxing his body in between Tom’s body and the wooden table. Harry could feel where Tom’s arms were pressed onto his sides–the burn of it seeping through his robes.

“What the fuck do yo–”

“ _Be quiet._ ” Riddle hissed, and Harry clicked his mouth shut. It was easily the most terrified Harry had ever recalled being, shock shooting up his spine at the murderous expression that suddenly overtook Riddle’s face. 

Harry’s body was frozen entirely in shock, unable to comprehend just what was happening. He scrambled to think of something to do, his mind screaming for him to get away--but Harry could not move. Riddle’s eyes so close to his own that it felt like his soul was being sucked out from his eyes.

_Riddle was bloody insane. He seemed just fine a few seconds ago..._

“Do you know just how  _frustrating–”_  Riddle murmured into the short space between their faces, his breath hot wafting against Harry’s cheek as he spoke. Harry was, for once, unable to think of anything to say. “–it is to work with you practically breathing down my  _neck_?”  

Riddle whispered, and Harry shrank into himself when Riddle leaned in until their noses touched. The contact making something stir within Harry’s mind–like a memory long lost.

“Do  _you_?” Riddle repeated and Harry inhaled sharply when Riddle arms were suddenly clutching at his arms–his grip so tight that Harry was sure he would have bruises.

“I won’t bother yo–” Harry tried to say, but Riddle cut him off once more. His eyes flashing dangerously beneath the low light of the lit sconces in the room.

“You've done more than bother me,  _boy_.” Harry bristled at the condescending tone in Riddle’s voice, proudly jutting his chin upwards to glare into Riddle’s own unwavering gaze.

“You’re only a couple months older than me. You’re one to  _talk_.” Harry shot back, ignoring the way Riddle’s nose flared and his lips quirked into a sneer.

“You know what? I don’t have to take shit from  _you_ of all people _._ ” Harry snarled, pressing his hands suddenly to Tom’s chest and shoving him as hard as he could.

He felt satisfaction curl in his gut at the way Tom’s eyes shot open in surprise, barely catching his balance when he stumbled backwards. Harry pushed past him, heading immediately for the door before Tom could even right himself. 

Satisfaction curling in his gut when Riddle cursed; the clattering of vials and the shattering of glass that followed, drawing forth a strong surge of vindictive pleasure from Harry.

_Fuck him. This is the last time I’m ever going to be nice to him._

And then Harry was out the door, the door slamming shut loudly behind him as he practically sprinted down the hall. Angry tears welling up at the corners of his eyes and trailing down his cheeks before he could stop them.

He didn’t know why he was crying--why Tom being such an arse to him for simply caring in that second affected him in such a way.

Riddle wasn’t  _nice._ Polite, sure. Charismatic, without a doubt. But there was nothing nice about the boy.

But damn it, Harry had thought that Riddle at least liked him. That he was at least a little special even if they didn’t  _always_ get along. . 

Harry did not want to admit that it  _hurt_. Stifling his frustrated tears as he passed through several nosy portraits in the hallway toward the dungeons. But it did. More than Harry had expected it to.

_Fuck him._


	15. Favor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: G-T  
> Warnings: Harry's cussing
> 
> Prompt: None, this was something I drafted up at work and the idea would not leave me alone. It will remain a one-shot, though. I didn't plan for anything more.

“I may not be what you want, but I am who you need,” Riddle seethed, the way the words escaped his lips sounding more a threat than the confession it was. In a way, that was what it was, wasn’t it? Harry knew it from the moment Riddle had crowded him into the darkened corner of the library--the sconces long since extinguished by Madam Pince when she left hours after curfew.

 

“I neither want nor  _ need  _ you. I don’t know what I’ve done to give you this idea, but you’re clearly mistaken,” Harry spat, his wand clutched tightly between his fingers. He watched the way Riddle practically towered above him in the dark, looking more demon than man--a shadow rather than a person made entirety of flesh and blood.

 

Harry wondered that if he were to peel back Riddle’s layers, if fire and brimstone instead of blood and muscle. It was a funny thought to have at 1 a.m. in the restricted section, but an apt one considering the circumstances. They were both alone--and Harry knew he was not at all equipped to duke it out here in the library.

 

“I know your secret, Harry. I know about what goes on in these halls. I know you’ve been digging your nose into business that does not concern you,” Riddle began, but Harry did not let him finish.

 

“Well, if you already know so much about me, Riddle, why bother asking me these pointless questions? Kill me if I am that much of a threat,” Harry retorted, his shoulders so tense he was sure they might snap if pushed just a bit over the edge. Riddle, despite the growing tension in the air, looked quite relaxed. His wand was nowhere to be found, his arms lax at either side of him. He looked the picture of refined elegance, of beauty in repose--but Harry knew better.

 

He’d seen just what the prestigious Headboy had been up to--in the wrong place and the wrong time when Riddle had been disciplining one of his sycophants.

 

This boy was no angel, and Harry would not be fooled again by this facade. 

 

“Kill you? That is an  _ interesting  _ idea,” Riddle intoned, his voice heavy with his amusement. “But no, that’s not quite what I desire from you. You see, you could be quite...useful.” 

 

Riddle did not move, choosing to remain where he stood as he spoke.

 

It was unnerving to Harry to see the boy lose the humor in his tone, the pleasant mask of humanity discarded like some person suit, to reveal the cruelty beneath.

 

“I have a proposition for you. I know you’re in need of some...help. I could not help but overhear your discussion with Weasley.”

 

Harry tensed, swallowing down the sudden onslaught of emotion. He was beyond shocked, and motified that Riddle had somehow overheard his conversation. Harry had been sure he’d been speaking quietly, but apparently, not quietly enough if Riddle found out.

 

“No thanks. Like I said, I don’t need nor want anything from you,” Harry said with conviction, wholeheartedly believing that he’d rather deal with Malfoy’s shite than ask anything of Riddle.

 

“Are you sure? Do you not need a proficient wizard to...as they say, facilitate your journey to Germany? A companion your parents will approve of that will not encourage your reckless behavior?” Harry swallowed, cursing the fact that Riddle was right.

 

Harry did need someone to accompany him through the dangerous terrain in Germany--there were too many bloody wars going on as it was. Harry’s parents would never let him go if he’d invited anyone short of perfect. He needed someone with a little more sense--or someone that seemed to have it.

 

Riddle, admittedly, would have been Harry’s first choice had he not found out about Riddle’s unsavory hobbies. 

 

And it was frustrating.

 

Because Harry’s parents already knew some things about Riddle, having heard nothing but good things from professors and students alike.

 

The Wizarding community was too bloody small.

 

“No. Absolutely not,” Harry stubbornly refused, all too aware of the growing tension between Riddle and himself the longer they remained in the corridor. Riddle’s lips pursed into a smirk, the expression wolfish and and hungry, making Harry think instantly of a predator with each passing second.

 

“I suppose your god father will die, then. You will not be able to acquire what it is that you are looking for in Germany.”

 

Harry froze, nearly dropping his wand in shock.

 

How did Riddle know about that--

 

Harry breathed in deeply to calm himself, ignoring the way Riddle’s eyes glowed eerily in the dark. Harry did need to go to Germany, and he knew he’d never be able to without Riddle’s support. He didn’t want to owe the bloke a thing, but there was really no other option.

 

Ron’s parents would never permit their son to go, and Harry would sooner die than put the ginger in such a risk. Hermione would scold him within an inch of his life, and likely reveal the true extent of his mission to his parents. It would all be with good intentions at heart, but it would definitely cause irreparable damage.

 

It pained him to say it, but Riddle was right.

 

“Fine. It’ll take your help. But what’s the catch? You don’t strike me as the type to render his services so easily.”

 

No, Harry knew for a fact Riddle had some other ulterior motive.

 

“My aid for one favor,” Riddle replied smoothly, practically purring the words out. It made something itch in the back of Harry’s brain.

 

“...One favor. Nothing dark, Riddle. Nothing illegal,” Harry hedged, knowing just how dangerous it was to owe Riddle of all people a favor. Especially after what he’d learned.

 

“Nothing illegal or dark, I assure you,” Riddle looked smug as he said it, but Harry chose to ignore it. Trusting Riddle’s words only because Harry was going to make the boy swear an oath to him. 

 

“Swear it on your magic,” Harry commanded, face paling when Riddle’s eyes snapped quickly to his own gaze, the boy’s expression hungry.

 

“I, Tom Marvolo Riddle, swear on my magic that the favor you will owe me will not be illegal or dark.”

 

The air around them flickered with power--an indication that the oath had become effective in that second. 

 

Harry felt incredibly nervous despite how clearly this benefited him. He couldn’t help but feel like there was just something missing that Riddle had chosen not to tell him.

 

“Now then, let us retire. I must meet with your parents tomorrow morning, after all,” Riddle stated smoothly, a grin wide on his face.

 

Yeah, Harry was definitely going to regret this.

 


	16. Serpentine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Canon-typical violence  
> Prompt: Malfoy manor, Harry gets locked in with Nagini + Harrymort  
> Rating: T.
> 
> I hope you all enjoy! C:

Harry had three seconds to move before the snake plunged its teeth into his arm. Three seconds to pinpoint just where Hermione was in the dark. Three seconds to decide which direction to fling himself. He didn’t have the luxury of thinking through his next course of action.

The serpent was baring its teeth at him, and he needed to move _now._

And then he was lunging, the sensation of the snake’s hot breath over his arm scalding as he narrowly avoided her sharp fangs.

His body hit the ground hard, splinters and broken glass embedding themselves into the palms of his hands. He ignored the pain, choosing instead to scramble to his feet to look for Hermione. His feet slid across the dirty floor, but he otherwise, managed to raise himself from the floor quickly.

He heard something crash behind him, and did not bother to look too closely at the room around him. He knew the space wasn’t necessarily big. Perhaps in the past, the room would have been more spacious and could have served as the perfect place to entertain large sets of guests, but not anymore. It was cluttered and full of strange knick-knacks that made Dumbledore’s old office pale in comparison.

It was a blessing that Harry had scoped the room out thoroughly when he had followed the imposter in earlier. Otherwise, he would have been in deeper trouble.

He had lost his glasses in the scuffle, and the world around him was a complete blur. The shadows were no longer clear, the world around him faint lines that Harry had no hope of distinguishing in the dark. It was all a mess of colors, the world a kaleidoscope of blacks, browns, and beiges that it did little to settle Harry’s nerves.

He bumped into several pieces of furniture as he moved, but he did not stop running. Barely biting back a curse when he jammed his hip into a dresser as he scrambled for a way out—the exit just at the other end; the light blazing out past the entrance the only thing Harry could actually make out.

“Harry!” He jolted, turning his head in the direction he had heard Hermione’s voice from, just several feet to his left. It was near where the light shined brightly, and Harry scuffled faster, ears perked for the sound of the serpent coiling its tail in the dark.

“Hermione, get out of here!” Harry barked, twisting to his right when he felt rather than heard the snake’s breath fan behind him. “That wasn’t Bagshot, its Voldemort’s bloody snake!”

He cursed when the snake slipped its tail around his ankle, coiling tightly around his leg and dropping him to the ground. Harry could faintly hear Hermione in the dark, her footsteps coming closer despite the clear warning in his tone.

She was supposed to run; to listen to reason!

Harry cried out when the snake twisted around him, its maw pressed dangerously close to his neck as it lifted him up in the air. Harry could feel its fangs digging into his neck, but the snake did not bite down as he had expected it too.

His fingers felt numb, shaking as he tried to reach for the wand tucked in his pocket. The shock of the snake ambushing him giving him little time to slip the familiar holly between his fingers to fight the serpent off.

Swallowing, Harry heard the snake hiss, an intelligible sound that Harry could have sworn sounded…pleased.

“ _Master will be pleassssed,_ ” The snake crooned, and Harry had no time to properly respond to the statement before he felt something snag into his navel, his fingers twisting and jerking within the snake’s grip as he tried to fight it off. A sense of dread exploding within him when he realized just what the snake intended to do.

_No!_

Harry knew what that sensation meant, having felt it one too many times when slipping away with Ron and Hermione at his side after getting into far too many dangerous scrapes.

“Harry!” He heard Hermione call, and then the world faded. The tug of unfamiliar magic propelling him so quickly that Harry could scarcely take a breath, his eyes wide and frantic with fear as the snake apparated him away from Bathilda Bagshot’s home and into a place he had never been to before. He could not recognize the flash of green before his eyes, the splatter of silver and gold that danced along his vision as he tried to make sense of the world around him; nausea clawing up his throat as he tried to gather his bearings.

He landed roughly on the carpeted ground, his face slamming so hard on the floor that he cried out from the shot of pain it elicited. It felt like he’d been punched hard across the face, and Harry groaned when the serpent, still wrapped tightly around him, squeezed. His ribs felt like they were being crushed, smashed into fine powder, and Harry bit his lip hard enough to bleed.

“ _Master is not here, but he will be sssssson. I hope he will feed you to me,”_ The snake hissed, its tongue flickering against his cheek as Harry began to struggle; his hand reaching desperately for his wand, but finding that the serpent’s body was pressing his arm so tightly to his ribcage that he couldn’t draw away from the constriction.

_Merlin._

Harry needed to escape before Voldemort arrived. He needed to do _something._ He felt his desperation eat away at him like fire on dry wood; a lit pyre rushing through his veins as he twisted and jerked, his legs kicking out uselessly before snake’s tail wrapped around his knees, and squeezed, robbing him of that simple movement as well.

“ _I will break your legs, little human. I am sure master will not mind very much if I do...”_ The threat was enough to stop his kicking, knowing full well that getting his legs broken would reduce his chances of escape significantly.

It ate at him to listen to the threat, to comply knowing that Voldemort was very likely on his way; but he needed to keep his wits about him. Harry couldn’t struggle properly if his legs were otherwise out of commission, and then, he _still_ had his wand. He wasn’t completely defenseless.

Although, that thought was becoming more and more difficult to hold onto with each second that passed.

The snake was silent as it twisted her body around him, its scales smooth and shimmering a bright green from what little he could tell with his poor vision.

He was sorely tempted to say something; to promise the snake something in return for his mobility. But his mind was drawing blanks, his panic cutting through his rationality like a hot blade to butter the longer he waited for the man of the hour to appear.

“ _You smell like master…you even understand me as he does…don’t think I have not noticed, little human,”_ the snake spoke, and Harry jolted, his fingers reaching once more for his pocket in hopes that his wand would somehow appear between his hands.

“ _I wonder if you will taste as good as you smell. It has been so long since master has fed me someone so young…”_ Harry swallowed, his eyes squeezing shut when the serpent slid its tongue over his trembling cheek, the impulse to move away incredibly strong.

But he restrained it, well aware of the threat looming over his head.

And then the temperature in the room dropped several hundred degrees, his skin shivering when Harry felt before he saw Voldemort’s magic filter into the room.

It was thick, its consistency like molasses at the back of his tongue, as the powerful wizard slipped into the room and the snake’s tongue left his cheek.

“ _Nagini, you have done well,”_ Harry shuddered at the sound of Voldemort’s hiss, the sound melding seamlessly within the dark. It was water flowing over and between boulders, powerful waves crushing and consuming any and all submerged within its icy maw.

The man was just as frightening as he had been the first time Harry had witnessed him, if not more so, now. Before, Voldemort had been foolish enough to challenge him one-on-one rather than kill him on the spot. Harry doubted that the man would make the same mistake again—not with Nagini nearly squeezing the air right from his lungs.

He wasn’t sure if it was fortunate or rather unlucky that the snake didn’t just crush him. Deprive him of much needed air until he was blue in the face, and died in that manner than in the terrible ways Voldemort surely planned to kill him.

It made something vicious swirl in his gut, like battery acid splattering onto soft, nubile flesh.

“ _My massssster, can I eat him?”_ The snake was eager, its tone pleased as Voldemort, like a dark shadow, walked further into the room stopping only when his bare feet were inches from Harry’s face.

Harry had never been so uncomfortable and afraid in his life. Not even when Voldemort was being willed into being was he this frightened; his heart beating so fast that it could almost slip right out from his throat.

“ _No, precious. He is not for you to eat,”_ Harry felt his stomach protest, his panic swelling into greater heights at the patient and fond tone in the man’s voice. It wasn’t something Harry wanted to hear from a murderer—it made him seem too human.

Voldemort was anything but.

“ _Release the boy, Nagini,”_ Voldemort hissed, sibilant voice drawing another repulsed shudder from up Harry’s spine as the snake did as its master bid it. He felt its coils slip away, its muscles contracting as they passed over his shirt and trousers, like fine silk over skin. Harry could feel its face like a sharp blade at the back of his head, but made no move whatsoever to look back—staring stubbornly at Voldemort’s blurry feet as he tried to gather his bearings.

Once Harry felt Nagini slip entirely away, he shot his hand into his trousers, wrapping his trembling fingers around his wand before pointing it up at Voldemort’s form, twisting his body till his side rather than his stomach was pressed against the carpeted floor. Harry could only make out where his bright red eyes gazed at his own, dirty face and the paleness of his skin, but it was more than enough for Harry to know just where the man was.

Voldemort’s magic was a presence in and of itself. Practically alive as it twisted and thrashed around him like black smoke. Harry’s vision was shite, but that did not mean his magical senses were as dull.  After spending countless days running in the country, he had sharpened his senses into a fine point.

Now it was just a matter of seeing if it was enough to get him out of this mess.

“Harry Potter, so glad you could join me,” The man intoned in English, and Harry bit into his cheek, before twisting from off the ground and scrambling as far as he could go without turning his gaze away from Voldemort.

The world around him was lines of bright green, silver, and gold—the colors blurring into one another at the corners of his eyes as he stared into Voldemort’s face. He moved as far as the room permitted, until his back pressed into the dresser drawer right behind him, the wood biting harshly into his back.

Voldemort, fortunately, did not follow.

“Speak for yourself,” Harry shot back, tucking away his panic as he watched Voldemort closely from the other side of the massive room. Voldemort was standing still, silent. His bright eyes making Harry’s stomach roil, his attention focused entirely on Voldemort despite the sound of Nagini’s body sliding on the ground.

Harry had no idea where the serpent was going off too, but that was the least of his concerns.

It was just him and Voldemort now, his wand and the distance between their bodies the only thing keeping Harry away from imminent death.

“I could think of a few things I’d rather be doing than being here with _you_ ,” Harry continued, his knuckles white with how tightly he was gripping his wand.

“You wound me,” Voldemort stated drily, his robes rustling when he began to move. “How will I _ever_ recover.”

“Don’t.” Harry stated, snapping his gaze behind him for a second to ascertain just where he could move in the room

It was for a fraction of a second. Perhaps even shorter than a millisecond, but it was all the opening Voldemort needed.

Voldemort was on him faster than Harry could whisper a curse, a _stupefy_ dying on his tongue when the man’s hand wrapped tightly around Harry’s throat. Harry could barely breathe, the man’s nails digging so harshly into the skin that cuts formed along his flesh like ugly, red lines.

Harry shot his hand out to wrench the man’s hand from his neck, scratching and clawing at the limb all while jabbing his wand hand into Voldemort’s ribs.

A whisper, and then Harry’s wand sailed in the air, torn away from his shaking fingers before he could tighten his grip on his wand.

“Now, perhaps you would be so kind as to have a seat. There is _much_ to discuss,” Voldemort murmured, Harry’s eyes staring almost helplessly into Voldemort’s own bright red eyes as he struggled for breathe.

The man lifted him by the throat, belaying a strength Harry had not, in fact, expected gauging the man’s skeletal frame, before moving. Harry choked, his hands scratching at the man’s forearm desperately as Voldemort practically carried him by the throat to a formless object at the other end of the room.

His lungs were burning with his desperate need to breathe, his stomach fluttering with nausea and desperation as his vision began to darken at the corners. His mouth gaping like a fish as he choked.

It was single-handedly the worst feeling Harry had ever experienced. It was entirely too similar to the time the locket had tried to drown him in the lake when he had been reaching for Godric Gryffindor’s sword at the bottom.

Harry gasped when Voldemort suddenly released his neck, his body landing roughly on what felt like a chair, choking and sputtering deep breaths. His lungs heaved, his stomach turned, and Harry tried to fight down the desire to throw up the mushroom soup he’d eaten before he and Hermione had decided to visit Bathilda Bagshot’s home.

Harry hardly registered the moment Voldemort hissed something under his breath, the spell unrecognizable when his blood was rushing too quickly through his ears.

Jolting, Harry felt something wrap tightly around his wrists and ankles, the material oddly smooth as it dragged his arms easily to the armrests and bound his ankles to the legs of the chair. It didn’t feel like rope, but Harry could tell that it had to be some sort of binding.

Harry shot his gaze to his wrists, squinting through his bleary vision to make out what they were. They looked sort of like ribbons—like something a fancy pureblood witch would wear wrapped around her robes to keep the material from billowing out unpleasantly.

“Tell me, Harry. Just what have you been doing while on your little escapade?” Voldemort intoned, and Harry clenched his jaw once he managed to settle his breathing. If the man believed that Harry was going to willingly answer any of his questions, then the man was more insane than people thought.

Harry sneered, shooting the man the most acidic glare he could scrunch up despite the bright flush on his cheeks and the sweat dribbling down his forehead.

“ _Sod off_. Like I’d answer anything you ask,” Harry snarled, craning his head to stare at Voldemort’s fuzzy face. He definitely regretted having lost his glasses. It put him on edge to not be able to see just what faces the man could possibly be making. “I’d rather die than answer to you.”

Harry needed to know whether the man was pleased or not. As useful as his magical senses were or as acute as his hearing was, he doubted he could quite predict the man with his vision impaired.

“…Death,” Voldemort murmured, his voice so high and soft that Harry almost missed the sound. The room fell into a hush after that, the only sound in the room Harry’s sharp breaths and the creaking of the chair every time he moved.

He tried to wrench his wrists repeatedly from his bindings, to push his legs out from where they were firmly tied on either side of the chair’s legs, but the ties refused to unwind.

“Do you wish to die, Harry James Potter?” Voldemort asked, his hand shooting out to grip onto Harry’s hair, his nails digging so painfully into his scalp that Harry winced, a startled crying leaving his lips when the connection between them began to thrum to life.

The agony was easily the worst thing Harry had ever experienced—the pain of Voldemort’s finger poking at his lightening scar at the Graveyard paling in comparison.

It exploded with agony, Harry’s screaming breaking the heavy silence that had fallen in the room. He struggled and shifted, his nails digging harshly into the armrest beneath his hands as he tried to fight off the knives that were repeatedly stabbing into his brain. His spine bent, the sharp pain shooting out from the focal point on his forehead, down and between each vertebrae, to the tips of his toes.

Harry felt like he was dying slowly. The sensation far worse than any torture curse Harry had ever had thrown at him.

“You would like that, wouldn’t you? A Gryffindor through and through,” Voldemort sneered, yanking Harry’s head further back by his hair to force his eyes to Voldemort’s.

Harry felt like his soul was being sucked right out from his eyes, the connection between their gazes so intense that the pain of his scar exploding on his forehead dimmed, fading to a twinge. Harry could see the different shades of vermilion in the man’s eyes, the flecks of burgundy and gold melding into one another.

Harry did not know when Voldemort’s face had gotten so close for him to see such subtle notes in the man’s eyes—to note the strange emotion swirling deep in the man’s gaze. It made something twist nervously inside at what this could mean, of what he could see.

Harry was blind as shite, but there was no mistaking the fact that there was no murder or malicious glee in those eyes.

There was something resembling hunger there…and curiosity. A dark, pervasive curiosity that erased all thought of the pain, replacing the agony with an all-consuming fear that cut Harry to the bone.

Nothing good could ever come out of a curious Dark Lord.

“F-fuck you,” Harry snarled, crying out when Voldemort tightened his grip on the boy’s head. Harry’s spine bent to accommodate the strange angle the man had forced him into, biting hard into his lip to silence another pained cry when Harry snapped his gaze away and the connection flared back to life.

Harry tasted blood on the back of his tongue, the metallic tang doing little to distract him from the wave of agony that spread from his forehead towards the base of his spine.

 _Merlin_.

“But I will not kill you, Harry. My pet has shared something quite interesting with me as I traveled here,” Voldemort finally said, the agony pulsing through his brain stilling.

Dread shot through Harry’s veins, his eyes snapping back to Voldemort’s pale face at the revelation.

_No._

He refused to be a pawn. He’d rather die than be used as some sort of weapon, if that was what the man planned.

“For how long have you been able to speak to snakes, Harry?” Voldemort inquired, his tone curious despite the rather firm grip he had on Harry’s head.

Harry sneered, spitting on the man’s face. Harry had no clue where Voldemort was going with this, but Harry refused to play along.

Harry felt him stiffen, the temperature in the room plummeting with the force of Voldemort’s ire.

_Good._

Harry was not going to make this easy for him.

“Kill me,” Harry hissed, glaring stubbornly into Voldemort’s red eyes, noting the way his lips twisted into a leer, the venom in the man’s gaze enough to poison.

“ _Crucio.”_

Harry screamed, his scar exploding with pain simultaneously as the curse began melt away at his bones. It felt like each of his fingers were being snapped, the nails ripped out from his fingers, individually and slowly. There was a jackhammer beating against each nob of his spine, cutting away at muscle and sinew to expose the bone to air.

Harry wanted to rip his head away from Voldemort’s tight grip, biting on his tongue to stop himself from screaming any more than he had already. He refused to give the man the satisfaction even if his mind felt like it was being ripped at the seams.

And just as Harry was ready to sever his tongue from how harshly he’d bitten on the appendage, Voldemort lifted the curse. Harry was trembling, his fingers jolting and twitching from the shockwaves of the torture curse flooding his veins.

Harry couldn’t stop himself from sagging into the chair, utterly spent. His head lolled over his shoulders, Voldemort’s grip on his hair the only thing keep it upright. And then Harry’s eyes caught Voldemort’s own gaze, noting fury and that damning curiosity still swirling in the man’s eyes. The distractor insufficient to tip the mine quite over the edge.

“Clever. But not quite clever enough…” Voldemort murmured, the anger slowly trickling away from his limbs before something predatory shot through the man’s gaze, the spark of emotion enough to draw a startled gasp from Harry’s lips.

Voldemort looked positively lethal.

_Shite._

“ _Legilimens_.”

And then Voldemort’s will forced its way through Harry’s mind, the magic enough to cut through any resistance Harry had managed to scramble together in the split second Voldemort shattered through his mind. Harry tried to blink, to turn his head away, but Voldemort’s firm grip on his hair did not allow him to move his head away, the compulsion in the man’s gaze so powerful that Snape’s could not compare in the least.

The man plowed through his mind like a wrecking ball crushing through abandoned buildings, swiftly and without mercy. Harry cried out when he continued to jerk within his bindings, the pain forming at the base of his head different than the pulsing of the torture curse.

Harry could see the memories of his scuffle with Nagini perfectly, could see Hermione and him taking the potion before setting off to Godric’s Hollow, as if he were living the memory all over again. Harry cried out when Voldemort pushed past the memories at the surface of his mind, delving deeper, going further into the past as he ripped through all the memories he had.

Harry was panicking, his desperation seeping through his bones when Voldemort watched with avid attention the moment Ron had slammed Godric Gryffindor’s sword into Voldemort’s locket, smashing the trinket into tiny pieces. Harry trembled when the man continued to watch, making note of the moment Dumbledore had appeared with his hand ravaged after destroying the ring, and then further. Harry was crying by the time Voldemort had seized on the connection of his horcruxes, the man’s fury growing more and more out of control until snapped at the scene where Harry stabbed the Basilisk’s fang into Tom Riddle’s diary.

And then Voldemort slipped away from his mind, his magic exploding with his fury like a thunderstorm tearing through cities. Harry could feel rather than see the way the magic choked him, the hatred, anger, and fear so potent in the air that Harry’s breaths sputtered.

It was the only warning Harry had before Voldemort pressed his wand against Harry’s throat, his adams apple bobbing nervously when Voldemort, rather than immediately attack him, only watched him behind his fury, the emotion slowly evaporating until there was absolutely nothing in his gaze.

The storm calmed.

Harry was terrified, noting a lucidity in the man’s gaze that Harry didn’t recall seeing when Voldemort had returned from his state of in-between.

Harry didn’t think the man capable of it, but it was there. And the unpredictability of it made his mouth incredibly dry.

“…Horcruxes. Parseltongue. Able to sense my Horcruxes.” Voldemort whispered, and Harry had to strain to hear him through the panic and his blood rushing through his veins when Voldemort teased his throat with his wand.

And then the man began to laugh, a sharp, wild sound that made Harry wince. It was so sudden and biting that Harry could only gape, Voldemort’s painful hold on his hair falling away as Voldemort straightened to his full height.

Voldemort laughed for what was an eternity and Harry could only watch, his mind absolutely silent as he witnessed the man lose it in front of him.

_He’s bloody insane._

“…He was certainly clever, I’ll give him that much credit.” Voldemort finally said, reining in his mirth finally.

Harry frowned, brows furrowed with deep confusion.

_Just what was he talking about—_

“Harry James Potter,” Voldemort murmured, his hand slipping to cup Harry’s cheek within his palm. His hand like ice, cold enough to freeze even fire as it pressed softly against his cheek.

“How much did Dumbledore really tell you, Harry?” Voldemort asked, and Harry was thrown by the suddenness of the question.

_Just what was the man getting at?_

“Did he ever tell you anything of actual substance, Harry? Did he ever share with you the true reason why it had to be _you_ that defeated me?” Voldemort’s tone was knowing, a mirth in the sound that made Harry clench his teeth in irritation.

Because Dumbledore never told him anything. The man was as cryptic as the Ravenclaw portrait. His words always carefully tailored, and his messages too complicated for even a genius to understand. It had been infuriating.

“His Golden boy bred for _slaughter_. And the old fool had the audacity to call _me_ cruel,” Voldemort teased along Harry’s skin, as if he were petting a beloved pet rather than his most hated enemy. Harry did not know what to make of it, choosing to listen rather than say anything and interrupt the man’s tirade.

“You…” Voldemort hissed, his eyes flashing dangerously as he leant forward, his face so close to Harry’s own that Harry could feel the man’s breath pressing against his face, the scent of blood and dirt thick in Harry’s nose. “…are my horcrux. The one that never should have been, but was.”

Harry froze, his mind blanching completely.

“N-no,” Harry choked out, his limbs shaking with fear, his mind exploding with fear and shock.

“ _Yessss_ ,” Voldemort crooned in parseltongue, his touch growing more firm when Harry began to shake, his eyes wide and his lips trembling with horrified realization.

_I’m Voldemort’s horcrux._

The thought made something like ice settle within the marrow of his bones.

“ _Dumbledore never planned for you to live. He molded you into the perfect martyr, willing and determined to die for his cause. Your life was never yours, had never been, not since my soul was pressed between your pitiful ribs._ ”

Harry ignored the man’s words, incapable of stringing a single sentence.

_I’m a bloody horcrux._

The words weighed heavy on his chest.

_I have a piece of Voldemort writhing between my ribs—sullying and living inside me like some sort of parasite._

Harry felt bile gather at the back of his throat, hot and acidic. Tears gathered at the corners of his eyes, barely stopping himself from letting them fall as Voldemort’s bright eyes, the only thing Harry could see so clearly without the need of his glasses, gazed into his own.

What did it matter that the man could read his mind? Voldemort had already gathered all the information he needed, made all the inferences he could out of them.

Dumbledore had raised him like a pig to be killed, and Harry could not find it in himself to be angry at this. He just felt tired, resigned. His energy sucked right out of him.

_Merlin, I’m—_

“Do not worry, my Horcrux. I shall take good _care_ of you. I do not abandon nor so callously discard my possessions,” Voldemort’s words were anything but comforting. Horror clawing up his throat as Harry renewed his desperate struggles against the restraints holding him down.

“Your death shall never come to pass, your soul is _mine_.  As it has always been. _Mine._ ”

Harry trembled, and finally let his tears trickle down his cheeks.

Red eyes the last thing Harry saw before Voldemort whispered something beneath his breath and darkness consumed him.

 


	17. White Poppies in Your Hair

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: None, this is something that came out of my own head. This is a Vampire/Serial Killer AU.
> 
> Rating: M for violence, gore, mentions of torture, and unresolved sexual tension.
> 
> Please mind the typos. There may be a few I didn't catch. 
> 
>  
> 
> Leave me a comment if you like c:

Harry couldn’t look away.

 

He tried to close his eyes—to give himself a momentary reprieve from a sight that should have repulsed him. 

 

But he could not. 

 

The man before him was as entrancing as he was horrifying—the jarring image trapping his gaze as completely as the restraints keeping his arms and legs firmly in place. It consumed him—denied him escape even as he willed himself to twist his own emerald gaze away, to no avail.

 

This man’s eyes were unshakeable. 

 

The dark eyes ensnaring his own were like glittering gems, obsidian and onyx melting into the rich pools in such a fashion that Harry could not discern where the man’s pupil began and where it ended. They were so dark that Harry felt like he was falling into pools of black, the emptiness whispering promises of death in their depths. 

 

It was an unfathomable shadow and it reminded Harry of the unseeing eyes of the victims this monster had slain. Of eyes that would never light up with joy or anger, of eyes that would never look at a loved one or take in the richness of the world around them.

 

It was horrifying as it was beautiful. 

 

Harry felt like he was drowning, his breath coming in weakly as if he were trying to take in water rather than the cold air pressing against his skin. His chest tightened with his strain to let in the oxygen he needed, his arms jerking and shuffling within his restraints as he tried to move away from the predatory gaze that held him prisoner. 

 

There was a whisper of fear at the back of his head beckoning him to turn away, but Harry could abide it. He knew it was pointless; he was like a butterfly pinned beneath the cruel hands of a child. 

 

His struggling would get him nowhere, though trying to stop himself from struggling was no easy feat. Not when death was staring at him so curiously. 

 

It was only after minutes of pointless fighting that Harry finally stopped, the burn of his wrists pulling against the coarse ropes, a vivid reminder of how furiously he had fought when he had first awoke in the dark room.

 

Harry felt stiff, his limbs boneless and pliant despite the rapid beating of his heart, its thrumming insisting and unstoppable. With adrenaline rushing through him, Harry released another strangled breath in a pitiful attempt to calm himself, and he almost laughed then, the notion of possibly relaxing ridiculous considering the circumstances. It would certainly be a miracle if he managed to do that when he was literally in the presence of a bloody psychopath.

 

The man cocked his head, and Harry jerked back, unwittingly pulling against the restraints once more despite the mantra in his head urging him to relax.

 

_ Calm down, Harry. This is what he wants. Don’t show fear. _

 

Harry’s lips quivered, trembling so intensely with his nerves that he had to bite on the offending appendage to stop the involuntary motions. Harry was afraid, but he knew that the man lived for the fear of his victims. The monster thrived off the unease and the disquiet he created before killing his unfortunate quarry. Harry could not let the man know that he was frightened, that he was so scared that he could hardly take a breath without his lungs protesting. 

 

The monster would only get off on Harry’s show of weakness.

 

And so Harry, once more, worked to calm his breathing and will his heart to slow.

 

Harry may have been taken, just as the others before him had, but Harry could not give the bastard the satisfaction of seeing his fear. Of course, anyone in Harry’s position  _ would  _ be afraid. And anyone that knew him would know that this was possibly the most scared Harry had ever been in his life despite the atrocities he had seen throughout his time on the police force.

 

But Harry would not buckle under the noxious feeling churning in his belly, the memories of the horrific crime scenes reminding him again of this monster’s penchant for cruelty.

 

“Are you afraid?” Riddle whispered loud enough for Harry to hear, the sound chafing at Harry’s mental defenses.

 

Harry counted to ten, shoving the unease that the velvety voice inspired in him aside, before deciding right then that he was simply not going to respond. The bastard wanted an answer? Harry would simply clamp up, then. He wasn’t going to lie down and take the beating—even if he was strapped up tight and unable to escape from his, most assuredly, imminent death.

 

Harry wouldn’t play this game. Harry knew what the man’s intentions were gauging from the glimmer in the man’s eyes.

 

A sadist lulled you into comfort before tearing you away from the little stability you’d gained, or simply presented you with the nauseating scenario just to evoke some sort of reaction. Harry had seen them all—studied enough in his time on the force to understand that this was how they worked.

 

And this man had it down to a science. Practically textbook, if Harry was being honest.

 

All the victims before him had been drained entirely of blood. The exsanguination sign enough that this man was going to be dangerous and difficult to catch, especially when there were never any prints or equipment to identify just how the men and women were drained.

 

Harry remembered with great detail the first of a series of bodies. She was a young girl of thirteen with black ringlets framing her petite head. She had been so small that it was a miracle in and of itself that anyone could have found her lying out in the forest right at the outskirts of town. It was the ideal spot for teenagers to smoke pot; the perfect venue to hide away from cops. A place, Harry himself had visited when he was a young boy living in Little Hangleton.

 

So it was surprising when the girl had been found, her body laid out on the soft grass. Harry could still see the girl’s sightless dark eyes staring out above her, the seemingly peaceful expression haunting his dreams for days.

 

Harry almost wished for the simple days when the town had assumed the death of Myrtle Warren was the most tragic thing to come to Little Hangleton. Because nothing could have prepared anyone for what came after finding poor Mrytle.

 

A few weeks after they had found the girl, another body turned up. And another. And then another. All distinctly different from the rather placid and tranquil look to the little girl.

 

At first, Harry’s department had thought them to be different killers. Because surely, Mrytle’s killer, although a monster in his own right for taking the life of a young girl, could not have been the one that had slain the others. 

 

But there was no mistaking the fact that the people that came after were also drained entirely of blood, just as Mrytle had. It was the common thread connecting them all, but their  _ bodies.  _ Harry shivered, recalling his own horror and disgust at the horrid state of the men and women that followed after Myrtle.

 

Every single victim thereafter had been tortured horrifically. Their limbs bent in angles no person could naturally bend, their jaws wide and their tongues sometimes missing from their mouths. Their bodies twisted while  _ alive.  _ Limbs were pulled apart, seemingly torn off by some strong force. Teeth were ripped from gums. Intestines were laid out on the fresh grass like a sacrifice for an unknown god. 

 

And that was only the tip of the iceberg. The beginning of a series of tragedies.

 

Harry found  _ more  _ and  _ saw  _ more. Each death that followed worse than the last. It made sifting through the evidence in his office back at the station a nightmare—the thought that there was someone in their town capable of something like this completely horrifying. 

 

Harry did not believe in monsters, but with each passing day, he felt this belief waiver; his conviction further and further eroded with each body uncovered and each family he had to give the sad news to.

 

So Harry had plenty of reason to be afraid. He was in the belly of the beast, the killer that had been plaguing the town literally inches from his own sitting form. Harry knew what this monster was capable of, perhaps better than anyone else. He had dedicated hours, days, and weeks on unmasking this creature, but still, he fought down the nauseous fear urging him to beg for his life. 

 

The killer would grant him no mercy. His words would only wet the man’s appetite, and Harry knew, could feel it within his bones, that the moment he opened his mouth to plead for mercy, that his suffering would be assured.

 

Though, pain was inevitable regardless of what he said.

 

Harry had unmasked the monster—he had come closer than anyone the force had ever come before. Harry had discovered the story the man had wanted to depict through the bodies, analyzed the messages he would carve into their skin. 

 

The scales over Harry’s eyes fell away with each body, the mystery unwinding. Harry had thought that the killer had simply gotten sloppy, that he was losing control just as many killers often did. But the game the monster was playing was one Harry had failed to see—one that dragged him deeper into the abyss until all Harry could dream of was of the man’s hands pressing against his neck and strangling his breaths. 

 

And of future victims, potential victims, staring emptily back at him.

 

Harry should have been more cognizant, should have been more self-aware. He should have noted that the messages pieced together on the bones of the dead was not a cry for attention for the entire police force, as it often was. 

 

But for Harry himself. The attention the killer had wanted was his. 

 

And the trail? 

 

One left only for Harry to see.

 

Harry did not know how the man had noticed him. He was a simple detective, a single man that lived on his own with the stray owl he took care of. Harry was not the most sociable, his own unpleasant childhood making his capacity for trust rather limited.

 

Harry had two friends despite the large size of the town and his affable personality. He was just Harry, an orphaned boy that only wanted to wield justice in the palm of his hand while living a relatively peaceful life. It wasn’t much, and now, as he gazed at the handsome man in front of him, Harry wondered if that had been what caught the killer’s eyes in the first place. 

 

This killer was Harry’s complete opposite. 

 

Everyone knew who this man was.

 

Thomas Marvolo Riddle was a prominent man. A beautiful, yet mysterious figure, that hung around other slimey politicians in their town. No one quite knew what had brought him to Little Hangleton in the first place—of the reason why he had decided to take residence in the decrepit manor right over the hill overhanging the town. 

 

Many had believed it was for his own privacy, to keep away from the chaotic life of living in London.

 

But now, Harry knew better. 

 

The Riddle manor was distant enough that no one would ever hear the screams of victims. It was the ideal place for a murder.

 

And of course, now, it made sense why Riddle even got involved with the police department in the first place. Harry should never have allowed the man to oversee their progress on the case; he should have never sought the beast out himself for more financial support on searching for the monster killing innocent people in the town. 

 

It was a mistake that would now cost Harry his life. A simple gesture that had put Harry on the radar and had put Riddle right off the trail of suspects, even.

 

Because just who would suspect Riddle? A man that was hardly ever in town?

 

Harry groaned, ripped from his thoughts when Riddle suddenly seized Harry by his hair, the pressure of the man’s fingers digging painfully into his scalp making him wince.

 

It was a caress compared to what would come later, Harry was sure. This was nothing. But it still smarted—still stung despite everything within Harry urging him to silence his own pained sounds.

 

“Where are your manners, Harry? I asked you a simple question,” Riddle purred, his eyes flashing brilliantly beneath artificial light. It cast the man in an almost inhuman glow, the white light making his skin paler than what Harry had remembered it being the few times they had spoken. It reminded Harry faintly of demons—of what monsters hidden within the shadows of the night looked like right before they came to steal the souls of innocents away. 

 

Harry wondered if that was what this man was. A monster that feasted on the suffering of others, with its jaw poised over a person’s neck before shoving jagged teeth into their skin.

 

Harry smiled sardonically at the trajectory of his thoughts, unable to silence the whispers in the back of his head promising a painful death. His own imagination was, in all fairness, proving to be more frightening than the actual threat in front of him—as if Harry needed any more reminders of how seriously fucked he was.

 

Harry winced when Riddle tightened his grip, the man’s lip twitching imperceptibly at being ignored once more.

 

“Piss off,” Harry rasped, silencing the screaming that started up in the back of his head after his comment. It was stupid to incite the beast, but there was something satisfying about watching the man’s face twist into one of confusion.

 

The bastard expected fear. Harry would give him the exact opposite.

 

Even if he was going to die.

 

It was a morbid reality, but really, how much worse could the situation get? Harry had seen what the monster did to people, and although the thought of torture did make his heart beat quicker than it was already, what could Harry really do? 

 

Harry had done as much as he could to uncover the beast. He had gathered plenty of evidence at his cottage, had made recordings of his own thoughts on the matter and even explained in great detail how to piece the puzzle together. 

 

Perhaps the department would find it and use it to catch this man. Perhaps they would fail to find it and Harry would have died for nothing. There was really no way for Harry to know which one it would be, but he had to  _ hope  _ that Ron would see it. Harry never made tapes of anything—he never left evidence just sitting on his kitchen table.

 

It was the only thing keeping him going. The only thing, aside from his pride, willing him to defy Riddle.

 

Harry may die, but Harry would make sure Riddle would never be able to kill again.

 

And then, almost as if in response to Harry’s own thoughts, Riddle’s handsome face broke into a grin, the expression foreign and strange as Harry tried to make sense of it. It was all edges—a perfectly sharpened blade hoisted above a frail and quivering throat. His teeth looked too sharp and long, more like fangs than actual human teeth. It reminded Harry easily of that of a shark.

 

“You’re not going to beg for your life.” Riddle stated, a his grin widening when Harry failed to answer, alarm and apprehension slicing through Harry’s mind in response to Riddle’s peculiar expression.

 

Harry had seen the man smile numerous times on television, had seen him grin when speaking to the mayor and other officials at various town hall meetings, but there was something about that smile that had Harry tensing up in his restraints. The voice in the back of his mind a shout now as Harry tried to process just what was happening.

 

_ Was it the man’s tone? _ Harry thought as he renewed his struggles, watching how Riddle leaned in closer to his own face.  _ Was it the look in his eyes?  _ Harry gasped when something flashed in the man’s eyes, malicious glee swirling within the black.

 

It didn’t matter that Harry was resigned to die. The closing space between their faces forced all the air from Harry’s lungs. 

 

Harry watched helplessly as his own face was reflected in the man’s eyes, his own wide green eyes and parted mouth clear as day in the shadows.

 

It was unnerving, Harry’s instincts crying for him to move away, but there was nowhere for Harry to go. He was at Riddle’s mercy, tied and helpless, unable to stop the killer from from doing what he had done to poor victims that had come before him.

 

Riddle stopped just centimeters from Harry’s own face, his warm breath fanning across Harry’s lips. It made Harry’s skin burn and itch, the sensation drawing a repulsed shiver up his spine when Riddle’s eyes stared intensely into Harry’s own with that admittedly creepy grin still on his handsome face.

 

And then, there was silence. 

 

The man did not speak, his hand caught between the soft hair on Harry’s head.

 

It was a silence that weighed heavily in Harry’s gut, an absence of sound that threatened to break down the little composure he had managed to scrape up. 

 

_ But it just did not make any bloody sense! _

 

Harry expected to be screaming with pain, his eyes gouged out after the man slipped his fingers inside his sockets. Harry was prepared for death, but not for  _ this _ ...whatever it was that Riddle was doing. Harry had resigned himself to being tortured before meeting a gruesome death. 

 

But eaten away by the man’s gaze? That was not what Harry anticipated at all.

 

“Why haven’t you killed me yet?” Harry demanded,  unnerved by the intensity of the man’s stare and his silence. Harry couldn’t stand it, his fingers twisting within his bindings as he tried to get a hold of himself. But there was no helping it. Harry needed him to do  _ something _ , to say  _ something  _ at least. It felt like the man was eating him alive with just his gaze, like his flesh was being ripped straight from his bones.

 

Harry hated this.

 

But Riddle did not acknowledge the question, the fingers in Harry’s hair threading more tightly against his scalp. Harry could only swallow, ignoring the way his grip stung.

 

This was unplanned. Unscripted. Entirely out of character. Harry was supposed to be  _ dying. _

 

“You and I both know that I am not going to kill you, Harry,” Riddle finally stated, suddenly jerking Harry’s head up and against the headboard Harry was leaning against. Harry could no longer see Riddle’s face, his own head forced back until he could only see the tiled ceiling above their heads.

 

Harry squirmed against his bindings—the vulnerability of the position forcing him to act. This was what Harry had intended to provoke, but he could not stop himself from swallowing nervously when Riddle leaned in, his breath warm against the trembling flesh of his neck. 

 

Harry twitched, the numbness giving way to panic when he felt something wet trail against his throat—hot and slick as it danced over his bobbing adam’s apple and slid to a sensitive point right where his shoulder and neck met.

 

_ Was that his tongue?  _ Harry was horrified.

 

“W-what are you doing?” Harry cursed himself for stuttering, nausea twisting his stomach into pretzels when Riddle laughed into his skin-—the chuckle vibrating so intensely that Harry could have sworn he felt it rush up his spine.

 

Harry was prepared for the worst, his thoughts shooting a mile a minute with questions of what his fate would be. Death, that was a given. But the in-between was what made his fingers twitch and his toes curl with apprehension. 

 

_ Was the man going to torture him, then? Break him to tiny pieces before finally giving Harry the sweet mercy of death? _

 

Harry expected to be tortured. He knew that was his fate from the moment the man had broken into his home and taken him while he was out cold—drugged within an inch of his life. But Riddle was not supposed to press his teeth deep into his skin, his tongue smoothing across the carotid artery at his neck.

 

No. That was not what Harry had accounted for.

 

“Poor Detective Potter, you have  _ no  _ idea what it was that you were running after,” Riddle murmured into the skin, taking the flesh between his teeth and sucking it in harshly; so hard that Harry was sure that it would bruise. Harry twisted and writhed, suddenly aware that Riddle had leaned further into him, his body now pressed so intimately into his own that there was no space between Harry’s trembling stomach and Riddle’s own.

 

There was no place for Harry to move, his back pressed into the headboard, his legs tied down to the wooden posts of the bed, and his wrists tied down to the wooden headboard with his arms spread out. The man was practically laying on top of him, and Harry was unsure of what was most unnerving about this situation: the fact that Riddle had not tried to kill him yet or that it seemed the man was pressed much too close. 

 

Closer than Harry thought necessary. The reports had  _ not  _ included any information about possible sexual assault...

 

“Did you ever wonder how it was that I was taking their blood? You never did quite uncover that answer…” Riddle said before digging his teeth sharply into Harry’s neck, the sting enough to pull a gasp from Harry’s mouth. 

 

_ What is Riddle even talking about? _

 

“...or how their arms and legs were torn away from their torsos without evidence of heavy machinery to pull their limbs apart?” Riddle continued after releasing Harry’s skin from between his teeth, his neck feeling uncomfortably warm.

 

Likely bruised, Harry was sure.

 

“You expected a normal serial killer, I would imagine?” Riddle said, and Harry tried to jerk his head away from Riddle’s hard grip on his head to look at his face. To gather some sort of understanding as to what the bloody fuck was going on, but Riddle’s grip was firm. It felt like Harry had been trying to move a wall with his bare hands.

 

“I’m not human, Harry James Potter.” Riddle purred, and Harry cried out when Riddle sank his teeth into his neck once more, his teeth somehow sharper and longer than they were seconds before, as they sliced and cut into his throat savagely.

 

Harry’s mouth split open in shock, his body spasming. He hardly registered the pain in his surprise.

 

But then, as soon as the shock passed, the pain came. As swift and sudden as the press of Riddle’s hot mouth on his neck.

 

The pain was incredible, the agony flaring up each time Harry felt the man suck against his skin, his blood forced right out from where the man’s teeth had broken his flesh. Harry’s vision swam, a pained noise ripped from his mouth when Riddle dug his fingers more harshly into his hair to restrain him when he tried to fight, his head shaking and trying to buck the man away.

 

_ No…. _

 

Harry felt darkness creep at the corners of his eyes as Riddle—no, a  _ monster _ —continued to drink. His thrashing grew weaker and weaker with each drag, his mouth parting wide as he tried to make sense of what was happening to him.

 

_ What is this…. _ Harry thought, unable to voice the question when Riddle tensed his jaw and ripped another pained cry from Harry’s lips, the burn like acid shooting straight into his veins.

 

Harry felt like he was dying.

 

Harry hardly felt when Riddle released his tight grip on his hair, so consumed by the pain that when he blinked, his head was no longer pressed tightly against the headboard. Harry’s head had slumped to one side, his quivering muscles caving on him now that Riddle was no longer keeping it up. 

 

Riddle continued to drink, and Harry no longer had the strength to jerk his head. Let alone, to pull against the rope tying him down.

 

_ Am I dying?  _ Harry wondered, feeling weaker and weaker with each suction of Riddle’s hot mouth. It felt like his life was being drained away, the burn of his blood being forced out of his veins slowly fading into nothing—his fingers and toes growing numb as the darkness became more prominent across his vision, black creeping further along his vision..

 

_ I’m dying and Riddle is a va _ —

 

Harry couldn’t get himself to think the word, the ridiculousness of it too much. It just couldn’t be.

 

_ This simply could not be real _ , Harry thought as his vision lost its focus, a weak whimper leaving his lips as his glasses fell further down his nose.  _ But he’s sucking your blood straight from your bloody veins? This is no dream _ , a traitorous voice whispered, and Harry’s stomach fluttered, incredibly nauseous.

 

_ Oh god, Riddle is a vampire... _

 

And then Riddle stopped, his tongue swiping at the broken skin, before lifting his head—his face flashing across Harry’s darkening vision before he felt he felt Riddle’s fingers press into his cheek. The hand was ice cold, and Harry shivered when Riddle forced Harry’s face to look at him.

 

The first thing Harry noticed was that Riddle’s mouth was red and moist with blood, his chin dribbling with the substance. Harry wanted to scream, but when his mouth parted, only a weak sound escaped. A high-pitched sound that reminded Harry instantly of a wounded animal.

 

Harry did not want to look the man in the eyes, but he could feel Riddle’s burning gaze, practically demanding for Harry to look. 

 

Scrunching up what little energy Harry had left, his nerves static beneath his skin, Harry snapped his gaze to Riddle’s. 

 

Harry felt his heart seize, noxious and pervasive panic shoot up his spine, his eyes wide with his horror.

 

_ Red. _

 

The man’s eyes were red—the glimmer brighter than even the crimson staining the man’s sharp, fanged teeth when he grinned at Harry’s ashen face. Harry wanted to struggle, to put up some form of fight, but his body refused to cooperate. 

 

Harry’s body was unresponsive, dead weight as he stared into the eyes of a monster, the darkness at the corners of his vision making his panic grow with each passing second.

 

“ _ Exquisite _ .”

 

A croon.

 

And then, deep unfathomable black.


	18. Spine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: M
> 
> Prompt: None
> 
> Warnings: Violence and Sexual Undertones
> 
> This was something that was cooking in my brain. I was in a strange head space. Here it is. Comment if you liked.

He felt cold fingers dance along his spine, soft and smooth pinpricks nudging along each vertebrae curiously. Harry shifted in the bed, breath catching when the touch slowly lifted further up his back and near the nape of his neck. The touches like whispers in the dark, like the wings of a hummingbird flitting between vibrant green.

It always started this way; the touches almost drowned out by the buzzing in his ears and the soft puffs of air escaping his parted lips. It had become almost expected, the touch of death familiar despite how wrong it was to be laying out on his belly with his hands caught around the silken fabric of his pillow.

“ _ Harry Potter…” _ The boy shivered, unable to stifle the movement when the voice broke the silence weighing heavily on Harry’s shoulders. It was a hiss, weak and strangled, but still, Harry felt afraid, recognizing the source of that voice when the fingers continued to touch and prod. The curiosity, always the curiosity, present in the shape of those long, gnarled fingers.

“ _ Are you not afraid? Your death is assured, your fate sealed…”  _ The voice crooned, saccharine as the fingers spread along Harry’s neck, a cold palm spanning out until a solid hand was resting over Harry’s neck softly.

“ _ I am master of your fate, your life a faint light waiting to be snuffed out.” _

Harry released a startled breath when the monster’s grip became tight, the pressure enough to bring life to his deadened limbs, to shake the drowsy veil that had fallen over his eyes in the dark. It was the same, every time. The threats and the seductive promises of deaths were Harry’s realities; his constant companion since holing himself inside Grimmauld Place and away from the concerned looks of his friends.

They knew he was struggling, that air was as thick as water and clay slipping between a tightened fist. It was choking and noxious, the smoke settling over his senses like a mask as he tried to fight the despair and the agony that threatened to pull him into that sweet abyss.

The sweet darkness like the one that had taken his Godfather mere weeks before…

“You’re not real,” Harry said, throat tight when the hand did not ease its tight grip on the back of his neck. It was a heavy weight, a presence that Harry had grown accustomed to but despised all the same. Ever since the monster had broken open the connection, had exploited the sliver of emotion that tied them both as one, the man was a poison that refused to depart. A presence that slipped between the cracks Sirius’s death caused.

Harry hated it, despised the weakness and the way he simply gave in. But what did fighting ever do for him? What did struggling and screaming ever amount to than the death of all those he cared for?

“ _ I am very real, Harry. I am as real as the air you are breathing between your lips, as real as these fingers pressing into your skin. I am alive and here, the darkness in your soul…”  _ The voice purred, and Harry shifted against the softness beneath his naked body, unashamed and unsurprised that he was laid bare for the world to see.

In his head, there were no barriers between them. No separation between their consciousness. They were one and the same, the dark and the light dancing precariously in a waltz that never came to an end. 

It was the only time Harry had ever felt alive; the bursts of anger, pleasure, pain, and amusement in the monster’s mind the break from the monotony that had sunk its claws into his sternum. 

“But you are not here, are you? You touch me but there is no pain. You speak to me, but there is no terror or rage. You are empty, a shadow of your real self in this room,” Harry whispered, mouth shooting open when the hand at his neck sank sharp claws into the tender skin—the pain as decadent as the fear that jolted low in the pit of his stomach.

These were the first real emotions he’d felt all day, his emptiness like a cloak wrapped around his shoulders as he tried to function throughout the day. To pretend that everything was fine, that the death of the only family he had left did not tear his heart in two.

“ _ Is that what you want, Harry? Do you want pain? For your mind to shatter and break with the power only I have?”  _  The monster asked, and Harry groaned when the fingers released their tight grip on his neck and racked sharp claws along his back, sharp pain shredding more of the veil of apathy that clung to his mind.

Harry was thrilled.

“If I said yes, w-would it matter?” Harry moaned when the nails sliced through his skin like butter, his skin breaking open and oozing vibrant crimson down until it trickled down his sides. The rivulets were like tiny fingers at his back, thin like the strands of hair tickling his forehead as they stained the white sheets beneath him.

It was always like this. Harry’s blood always stained in the white; evidence of the man’s undivided attention.

Harry smiled despite himself, the twist derisive as the hand smeared blood readily against his back, the warmth of his blood overshadowing the iciness of the man’s touch.

“ _ It would not, but there is satisfaction to be found in hearing you say the words...for my greatest enemy to fall to his knees in supplication _ .”

Harry arched his back when another cold hand wound its way into his hair before yanking on the strands. The man’s hand was like fire, the cold biting so deeply into Harry’s flesh that he could hardly contain his pleased sounds; the pain an addiction that cut through his emptiness and the overwhelming sadness that threatened to push him over the edge.

“ _ Beg, Harry Potter. Tell me what you want.”  _

Harry whined, unable to contain his sounds when a hand dug sharp nails into his hip, the burn as delicious as the sharp agony slowly building at his forehead, his scar buzzing like a livewire.

“ _ Say my name, beg your enemy to deliver you from the emptiness in your heart, to slip life into your bones…” _

Harry’s lips parted, and he swallowed before closing his eyes. He couldn’t see the creature, but he did not need to. He knew who this presence was. He was his constant companion, their fates irrevocably intertwined. 

There was no release, no escape. 

Harry let himself sink, and voice the words that had been wanting to slip from off his tongue since the monster had arrived.

“Please, Voldemort... _ hurt me _ ,” Harry supplicated before the magic sizzled within his belly, the tight grip on his hip and the sharp press of the man’s fingers on his hair exploding like fireworks; colors flashing in the back of Harry’s eyes as the cloying emptiness and sadness inside evaporated into gut-wrenching pain.

Harry’s scar exploded with agony, and he screamed. The sound soul shattering as Harry began to writhe and tears began to gather at the corner of his eyes from the delicious pain that wracked over him.

_ More. _

Harry wanted to feel. Even if the agony came at the hands of the man that had ripped everything away.

“ _ As you wish...my Horcrux.” _


	19. Impassioned Delights

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: T  
> Warnings: Violence, non-consensual kiss, and blood  
> Prompt: None, this was something peixe inspired through her art.
> 
> Tom and Harry are both female.
> 
> Please mind the typos. None of these are edited.

"...you again," Harrie muttered, struggling against the ropes binding her wrists together. She had been ambushed almost half an hour from sun down. The trickling of light and her lazy afternoon with her friend Hermione lowering her guard.    
  
It wasn't uncommon for demons to attack in packs, but the situation she had found herself in earlier had been unexpected. There had been at least 20 demons in the dank alley. How they had all managed to fit was still a mystery to Harrie.   
  
But that hardly mattered, not when she had literally had her rear handed to her.  And she was dragged away from the familiar street and down several archways and alleys that Harrie had little time to make sense of.   
  
The fact that she was forced to kneel in front of the boss was definitely not what she had planned for her evening.   
  
"Yes,  _ me _ ," the voice purred, and Harrie felt the hairs at the back of her neck stand on end. The tone was sultry and warm. It made something twist in her gut, and Harrie struggled more valiantly against the ropes digging into her back.   
  
"How lovely it is to see you,  _ Sister Potter _ . You're looking well," the demoness purred before stepping out from the shadows, her inhuman features and shapely body glowing beneath the moonlight above their heads. Her red eyes glowed brightly despite the shadows, her thin lips and gaunt cheeks making her look particularly gruesome.   
  
"Can't say I feel the same," Harrie spat, staring angrily into dark red eyes that brightened at the offense.    
  
_ Creep. _   
  
"...I'm hurt. I had thought we were on much better terms."   
  
Harrie bared her teeth at the woman, narrowing her eyes in irritation. The woman was bloody insane if she believed nearly skewering her with a knife would make Harrie particularly happy to see her.

"You thought wrong. Now let me go! We had an  _ agreement _ ." Harrie shifted her body to ease the discomfort on her knees, her habit a poor barrier for the concrete digging harshly into her knees.   
  
"Oh, sweet, virtuous Harrie. You should know better than to make a deal with a demon," Voldemort mocked, before closing the space between them. Harrie craned her neck to not miss a single expression on the woman's face, and glared at the small smirk that broke across Voldemort’s normally inexpressive face.   
  
"A deal is a deal!" Harrie sputtered, flinching when the woman suddenly kneeled in front of her and brought a cold hand up to Harrie's cheek. The touch was unwelcome, but Harrie was frozen entirely when Voldemort's eyes seemed to gleam more brightly, the crimson blending with flecks of burgundy and brown Harrie had never noticed in the demoness’s eyes before.   
  
"Mmm, and I am not breaking our terms. You never said that I could not  _ play _ with you," the woman hissed, and Harrie's mouth parted when the woman's fingers glided from her cheek to tease at her bottom lip with a cold finger.   
  
Harrie swallowed, the sound loud in the heavy silence that had fallen over them.   
  
_ Crap _ , Harrie thought.   
  
"Don't touch me you f--"   
  
"Now now, no need to be rude. I'll be gentle, just this once," Voldemort teased, and then the woman's hand was threading into Harrie's wild curls and pulling her head in. The pressure was so tight that Harrie could not fight it, and Harrie gasped when Voldemort's lips pressed against her own.

Harrie's mind reeled, noting the way Voldemort's forked tongue licked the seam of her mouth, the touch surprisingly hot.   
  
Voldemort kissed her as if she were desperate for air, her mouth devouring Harrie's own mouth like a hungry predator. Teeth bit harshly onto Harrie's lip, and the woman's grip on Harrie's head became tighter, seemingly emboldened when Harrie did not fight. Harrie's brain had ceased functioning, her shock keeping her rooted in place.

Because  _ surely _ , Voldemort did not just kiss her. It was unthinkable. It was absurd, but there was no mistaking the hot mouth against her own or the teeth digging into her bottom lip.   
  
It was just after Voldemort's tongue had slipped inside her mouth that Harrie thought to bite down, her mind sparking into wakefulness.    
  
Voldemort hissed before wrenching her head away, her lips a bright red. Harrie spat the blood that had pooled in her mouth, and glowered at the woman; a flush coloring her cheeks a vivid pink.   
  
"Do that again and I’ll bite your tongue off," Harrie threatened, ignoring the way Voldemort's tongue poked out from her lips and lapped at the blood staining the corner of her mouth before smiling mischievously.    
  
Harrie shifted nervously at the strange gleam that had settled over the woman's eyes.   
  
"We shall see."


	20. Cross

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Psychopomp  
> Rating: T for suggestive dark themes
> 
> I was inspired and here it is. Another one of the drabbles to add to my belt. There might be typos.

_ Pain. _

_ Excruciating, overwhelming pain. _

Harry could feel it crushing him, the jagged pieces like fissures across smooth glass as he tried to gather himself together. He didn’t know where he started and where he ended. He didn’t know how he even  _ got  _ here. 

Harry just knew black, and agony. The jolt ripping through his spine like paper as he curled into himself, unable to hold himself together when he was being torn in two.

_ Why? _

Harry shouted the question in his mind, the darkness making his vision twist as he tried to make sense of it all. He remembered coming home that afternoon. He remembered falling asleep in his makeshift bed, fully-clothed with his glasses pressed on his face.

He remembered it all with startling clarity. 

But how he ended up here, in absolute nothingness…Harry did not know.

Harry could not make sense of it, and even contemplating such a thing became more and more difficult as the seconds passed. As the pain began to build like water flooding a sunken ship, the ripples twisting and turning his insides.

_ Please make it stop. _

He begged, but the words did not leave his lips. His mouth hung open with his screams, but no words could pass through when they were twisted into pained groans.

It was absolute gibberish. It was madness. 

And Harry wanted nothing more than for it all to stop.

_ Please, I would do anything… _

And he would. Even if it meant dying. Anything was better than this.

“Anything?” 

Harry almost missed the soft hiss, the voice weightless as it danced between the heightening octaves of his screams.

_ Yes. _

Harry thought, almost instantly. The word shouted so loudly in his mind that he could hear the word ring in the back of his eyelids like droplets of water rippling a calm lake.

And then the pain stopped. The scream tearing through his vocal chords halted mid-shout. As if not mere moments earlier, he had not been undergoing the most painful experience of his life.

Harry felt his limbs collapse, boneless and weightless as if he were a puppet whose strings had been cut. 

Harry could only focus on the relief that this brought, on the calm and the peace that now overtook the chaotic ramble of his thoughts.

He could have cried from being released from the agony.

_ Thank God… _

“Your gratitude is misplaced.”

Harry did not have the energy to react. He knew deep in the pit of his stomach that he should be wary, that the presence of another in this black void he’d been thrust into should make him nervous. But he wasn’t.

What point was there in feeling alarmed? The voice had relieved him of his pain. Even if it was suspicious timing. 

If the thing had wanted to hurt him, Harry was convinced it would have. It would have simply left him suffering as he had mere seconds before if that was its intention.

“W-who a-are you?” Harry managed to say, his throat hoarse as he tried to string the words together. It was strange to hear himself after he’d spent God knows how long screaming. It was almost as if Harry were hearing someone else, as if a perfect stranger had spoken rather than himself. But Harry knew that it was his lips that had moved, his tongue that twisted to shape the syllabus to communicate with this unseen person.

Or whatever it was.

“Tom Riddle, your guide into the otherworld. The line between the spaces of life and death. You have called, your cries like the melodies of the sirens dancing along the minds of unlearned men.”

Harry blinked, but did not move. His limbs were like dead weights, and he was certain that if he even tried to stand that he’d collapse like a useless heap of limbs. His muscles were weaker than he ever recalled them being, the power he had worked into each tendon and flap of skin lost in this world of nothing.

Here, he was not Harry Potter, star football player. Here, he was just Harry. 

Though, that certainly didn’t mean he wouldn’t strive to understand what it was that had happened. His body was useless, but that didn’t mean he couldn;t work his mouth around to speak and figure out just what this all even bloody meant.

“O-otherworld? Are you saying I died? In my sleep?” Harry asked, his mind sluggishly piecing together the meanings and the implications hidden between the stranger’s voice.

“Correct. Your heart was failing on you, an untraceable illness you nor any of the healers of your time could possibly have mended.”

Harry swallowed audibly in surprise, the voice now sounding much closer. It sounded cleaner somehow, the hissing less pronounced and the pitch of the voice like a blade cutting through a thick flap of meat.

“So you must be the grim reaper.”

Harry knew then, deep in the marrow of his bones that this is what the voice was. That the end of his agony was likely the moment he had given in to death. That could only mean that the pain had to have been life trying to force him back to his body.

It had to be that. Harry couldn’t think of any other reason for his suffering. It certainly certainly explained why so few persons right at the precipice fell rather than stepped back, hands gripping onto life with deft fingers.

“I am known by many names. That is but one,” the voice said, the sound much closer now. So close that Harry was certain he could hear the soft sound of breaths from right above his head. “Shinigami...psychopomp...grim reaper...they are all a means to an end. An explanation strung together by intelligent and ignorant minds, alike.”

Harry’s breath hitched as he listened, the voice like water as it danced along his senses. It was like listening to music, the way the voice spoke was almost ethereal. Enticing as it was haunting in its cadence.

“You have chosen death in spite of your strong desire to live. In spite of the future I am certain you’ve strived your short life to reach.”

Harry sighed when he felt something cool press against his cheek. It felt like a finger, with the way soft little hairs teased along his cheekbones, the soft digit tracing down until it clasped just beneath his chin.

It was an oddly tender gesture, one that Harry had not expected at all. 

“You have chosen to give up your soul. I did not expect that from you, Harry James Potter.”

Harry wasn’t sure what shocked him most, then. The sound of his name or the sudden flood of light that nearly blinded him in that exact instance.

The darkness flickered away, like a mischievous child playing with the light switch in his mum’s bedroom as she slept. Harry blinked furiously to stop his vision from dancing, to erase the black spots that made keeping his eyes open difficult. 

It was several seconds before he could make sense of the world he was in, and Harry felt his heart (was it his heart?) race. The world around him was white, like water frozen at the corners of his freezer. 

There was no color. It was almost as terrible as the blackness he had been swallowed by.

It made it quite easy for him to notice the single figure in the room with him. The only speck of color in an otherwise colorless world.

Tom Riddle, the Grim Reaper.

He was possibly the most beautiful person Harry had ever seen. It was almost unreal, and Harry couldn’t stop himself from taking in the sight of a young boy, perhaps a few years younger than himself, lightly touching his chin.

“Oh.”

Harry had no words, and gauging from the slowly rising smile on the boy’s face, Harry was sure that the grim reaper knew that as well.

It couldn’t have been more obvious.

“I expected that you would fight me. That you would claw and bite as you have in your many lives before. You are  _ life  _ itself. The essence of joy and light, and yet…”

The grim reaper paused, and Harry took in the way the boy’s hair lay neatly on his head. It was completely unlike the mess on Harry’s head, even the way the single curl on boy’s forehead fell on that smooth, pale skin looked perfectly elegant. It screamed of control and vanity. 

It shouted hours of standing behind a mirror and tons of hair pomade in the mornings.

It made the boy look handsome, and Harry wondered why he even made this assessment at all.

This was death incarnate. He could possibly make himself look like anything he wanted. He could be  _ anyone  _ he wanted to be. Anything that could make the deceased possibly comfortable. Harry was sure of this.

But how had the grim reaper known him? He spoke as if he had met Harry before. As if Harry had been an acquaintance, a friend. Or perhaps, an enemy of sorts? 

It made no sense.

“I-I don’t understand…”

The boy froze for a moment, the grim reaper’s dark eyes flashing with some unnamed emotion before smiling at him. It was an overtly friendly expression.

It made Harry nervous. The expression looked strange on the pretty boy’s face,as if he were caught between being fond and predatory all at once.

“Your soul is older than the stars in your world. Always dancing along my fingertips, but never quite within my grasp.”

Harry’s brows furrowed in confusion, and he made to speak once more, to ask just what the bloody hell was going on, before the boy interrupted him. 

“You die, but never for long. Something always pulled you back...duty...friendship...loyalty,” the grim reaper continued, his fingers tightening on his chin before relaxing when Harry winced.

“I have waited for you for...a millenia.”

Harry felt his face heat when the boy’s voice dropped low, noticing the way the grim reaper’s eyes darkened and stared fixedly into his face.

“And now, you are  _ mine. _ ”

Harry gasped when the grim reaper’s fingers suddenly dug into his shoulder and hauled him to his feet, the movement making his vision swim and his body scream in protest.

Harry wasn’t ready. His body felt like it would break, like his bones were brittle with old age and his muscles had atrophied in the time that he had relaxed onto the ground.

But the boy hefted him up with an ease surprising in someone several inches shorter than himself.

Harry had always imagined that the grim reaper would be tall. A towering figure that would overwhelm all that had the misfortune of being in his presence.

...but this was certainly not what he’d thought. Tom Riddle was a good head shorter than he was. 

“Yours? I don’t understand what you--”

“You gave into death. You begged for relief, and I have freed you from the suffering of living. You promised me  _ anything  _ in exchange for deliverance.”

Harry’s body shook within the boy’s arms, his eyes staring disbelievingly at the capricious gleam in the reaper’s eyes. Harry did not understand what this ancient creature could possibly want with him. What use could Harry be? He was just...Harry.

“But  _ why _ ? None of this makes sense. You say you know me but I don’t remember you. What use to you am I? I should be just another plain soul like--!”

“You will never be  _ just  _ a soul,” the reaper interrupted smoothly. Harry felt the boy’s grip tighten around him, and he tried hard not to cry out from the pressure tugging at his bones.

“You exist to counterbalance the darkness, to fight and steer me away from a path wrought with suffering and pain. You were the only one that understood and truly saw me for the monster that I was.”

Harry’s breath caught, and he noted then how the black in the boy’s eyes began to melt away into a bright, vibrant red. The obsession in the orbs enough to choke Harry as he strained to make his limbs move, to force them to jerk and twist.

But Harry’s body only trembled, the weakness in the limbs keeping him pinned within the arms of the reaper.

“Your memory loss is certainly a shame...but I suppose you would never have given in if you had remembered just who waited on the other side.”

Harry couldn’t look away from the blinding red, watching the round pupil shrink into thin slits. It was almost like that of a serpent’s with the way it thinned. 

Harry felt like he would be violently ill.

“Your soul will never cross. It never had. And now, it never  _ will. _ ”


	21. Lovely

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Lovely + Harrymort  
> Rating: E  
> Warnings: Explicit Sexual Content and Mild dubious consent
> 
> Not sure where I was heading with this, but this is the trajectory the prompt took me. It tends to take me in interesting directions, that is for sure lmao. Soulmate AU, who would have thought.

“ _Harry_.”

Harry shivered, unable to repress the unconscious reaction when a clawed finger pressed lightly against the nape of his neck. It was surprisingly gentle, the touch like a cold breeze brushing along exposed skin.

But that was not why Harry felt like his heart would burst, or why his hands felt clammy with sweat. No, there were many reasons why he felt like he would pass out right then and there.

“Vol–” Harry tried to say, but the words became tangled along his tongue. Lost, and never to be regained when the finger teasing along his neck dropped lower, ghosting along the center of his naked back.

And then the one finger multiplied. It was no longer one, but two, then three, then four, until a cool palm laid right at the middle of his back. Harry felt each ridge of the man’s fingers, felt each callous and each dip in the spidery digits as they teased and danced across his naked back.

It made gooseflesh rise wherever it touched him; heat building right beneath the thin layer of flesh as if someone had cast an  _Incendio_  from inside him.

It was always this way when the man touched him. It always felt like he were going to melt, like his skin was going to fall away and expose white bone.

“Such exquisite reactions at the merest press of my fingers. It never ceases to amaze me just how attuned you are…”

Harry swallowed back a curse when the hand dipped lower, the man’s nails scratching along the naked skin until Harry felt a sharp pain shoot along his spine. The man had drawn blood, but Harry did nothing to stop him.

After years, Harry had grown accustomed to the man’s more sadistic needs. There was no real way for them to be intimate without some sort of pain component bleeding into the passionate touches.

“…just how much your soul craves to become one with mine. It is intoxicating that you, my destined enemy, could crave this just as much as I.”

Harry moaned, pleasure dancing along the back of his closed eyes when that hand squeezed his arse roughly. The hand kneaded at the firm muscle, massaging away the hours of exercise he had put in earlier that afternoon with the department.

It was amazing just how good it could feel, how his soulmate could erase the hours of stress and abuse from work. Especially when it was his lover that made his work more difficult than it was.

Sleeping with the Dark Lord tended to bring those sorts of consequences. But it was the price he needed to pay. It was the deal they had both agreed to, and now, here they were.

Their skin pressed against skin, heat making caramel skin red with desire.

“S-speak for yourself. I may have proposed this idea to protect Britain from potential catastrophe, but that does not mean I–”

“There is no need for you to posture here, Harry. There is no Rita Skeeter to record our interactions. No politicians here to vilify you for your decisions. You made your proposal and I am merely here to collect…” the man hissed from above him, another hand dancing along his bare arse. “…the spoils.”

It was true.

Harry had been the one to approach Voldemort with his ridiculous proposal. He had been certain that Voldemort would not agree; that he would lift a hairless brow at him and fling the first curse he could think of in response.

But Voldemort had not. The man had heard him out, and after hours of negotiations, agreed. It had been an absolute shock to have been invited inside,  _without a wand pressed into his ribs_ , and asked to sit.

But the plan had worked. It had certainly required more out of Harry than he had initially planned, but it was better than the alternative.

Harry couldn’t sacrifice any more lives for this war. He had lost too much, and although it was disgusting what he had agreed to do. The nature of their…bond certainly made their interactions more palatable than what was possible.

“S-still, I will not behave like one of your sycophants. This is  _business_ , and it will never be anything else,” Harry nearly choked when Voldemort’s grip became unbearably tight. The man’s vicious nails dug into the flesh, and it took everything within Harry in that second to remain still.

“I don’t think you understand the nature of our agreement nor the nature of the bond we share, Harry.”

Voldemort’s voice was soft, but Harry knew that the man was upset. Harry could always tell, even when the man pretended to be otherwise.

Though, the fact that Voldemort was practically clawing into his arse was possibly a good indicator of the man’s…mercurial mood.

It didn’t stop Harry from scoffing, however. More than accustomed to the Dark Lord’s childish tantrums.

It could never be just a quick fuck, it always had to be about their bond.

Harry wished it could be simple. That their relationship was nothing more than a piece of paper for the greater good of Great Britain.

But this was not the case, not when he had Voldemort’s soul mark was smack in the middle of his forehead.

“It’s  _you_  that doesn’t get it. I may have your mark, but I am not yours. We have chosen to set aside our…hostilities when we made these negotiations. My word that I would not interfere in your bid for power in the outside world in exchange for your non-interference in Great Britain. My body in exchange for the lives of those that had fought against you. The list goes on. Pieces of me are yours to do with as you like…but I am my  _own_ , and not even this mark can change that.”

Harry whined when Voldemort spread his cheeks apart, his hips canting upwards wantonly at the feeling of cool air pressing against his puckered entrance.

“It is not simply the mark that makes you  _mine_ …” Voldemort hissed, and Harry cried out when a finger touched along his rim, the ticklish sensation making heat twist along his navel.

Harry didn’t need to be a genius to know just where Voldemort was heading with this. But Harry did not resist, his hard prick rubbing against the silken sheets beneath his nude body in excitement.

“Your body knows my touch, craves it when you are distanced from me…”

Harry opened his mouth to protest, but the words died as quickly as they manifested in his head, the push of Voldemort’s now un-clawed into his tight arse robbing him of his ability to speak. Harry hated when the man did this, but it would be a lie if he said it didn’t feel good to have him burrowing inside.

Their contract had been in effect for five years now. So Voldemort knew his body better than he had a right to.

“T-that’s not how it works–”

“That is  _precisely_  how it works, Harry.”

Voldemort cut him off smoothly, before shoving another finger inside without hesitation. The stretch burned, ripping a pitiful cry from Harry’s lips. The bastard had not thought to lubricate his fingers.

_Sodding prick._

“Right now, you are still hard in spite of my less than gentle explorations. The pain? Hardly a deterrent. In fact, I might say…” Voldemort murmured thoughtfully, twisting his fingers to brush against Harry’s prostate without fail. “…it  _excites_  you.”

Harry’s eyes rolled to the back of his head at the sensation, the explosion of delicious heat making his toes curl and his spine bow; the feeling nearly making the world fade from his understanding.

The burn that had made the sensation uncomfortable had nearly melted away from the continued grind of Voldemort’s fingers. Though, it could never quite mask the pain the initial intrusion always brought. Especially when Voldemort’s fingers went in dry and the man’s digits were hardly small.

“S-shut up,” Harry said through soft pants, his hands fisting into the silk sheets at either side of his head.

“You and I both know you enjoy a little pillow talk. I have certainly not forgotten the thoughts you practically shouted into my mind earlier in our…agreement.”

Harry clenched his jaw, frustration and irritation making his lips curl into a snarl.

_Why did he always have to bring that up…?_

“Fuck  _off_ ,” Harry cursed.

He didn’t need the bloody reminder. Not when he had to live with the fact that he was fucking his parents’ murderer for the greater good. He didn’t need that now, not when he wanted to simply fulfill his end of the bargain and return back to his cozy office in the Ministry of Magic.

“ _Fuck_  is certainly the correct term. I am certain that is the purpose of this evening…among other, more interesting things, don’t you agree?”

Harry failed to respond when Voldemort forced another finger inside, the burn returning with a vengeance now that the digits were no longer teasing along his prostate.

Fighting back tears of pain, Harry grit his teeth and allowed Voldemort to stretch him to his heart’s desire. Voldemort was a prick, yes. But he wouldn’t break Harry completely. The man would be utterly bored without some sort of challenge to stimulant his allegedly genius mind. It benefited them both for their play to never go beyond life-threatening.

But it certainly didn’t stop Voldemort from prodding at that line. If Harry showed any sort of weakness, there was no doubt that Voldemort would seize it like the good Slytherin he was.

“F-fuck,” Harry moaned when Voldemort rammed his fingers into his prostate. The burn, forgotten entirely when Voldemort hissed something unintelligible from above him to moisten his insides.

Harry wanted to weep with relief.

“My Harry,” Voldemort said, his voice now coming from several centimeters from Harry’s neck. The man, now, likely leaning over him like the light trailing after darkness.

“So mine…” Voldemort purred before plunging his fingers inside, thrusting them at a pace even Harry could not keep up with. His hips gyrated against Voldemort’s fingers, the ecstasy making his moans sweeter and breathier the longer Voldemort touched him.

“So beautiful…” and then Voldemort’s free hand was slipped between his parted thighs and stroked him in perfect sync with the fingers pushing deep into his arse.

Harry felt his mind blank, forgetting entirely where he was and with whom.

“ _My precious soulmate_ ….”

The words came in perfect parseltongue, and it was the only warning Harry had before his orgasm ripped through him. His mouth hanging open to release a heart wrenching cry from the intensity, unable to stifle the sound when Voldemort’s skilled fingers continued to abuse his hole and tug, twist, and flick across the sensitive head of his prick.

The touches had been too much, and the parseltongue had been the tipping point.

As it always was.

“ _Lovely_.”

And this was only the start of the evening.


	22. Frostbite

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Frostbite + Harrymort for ObsidianPen
> 
> Rating: M
> 
> Warnings: Dark themes, Violence, Voldemort being a bastard
> 
> Yeah, I did not expect this to get as dark as it did...oops XD

Endless white cut across Harry’s gaze, flurries of snow gliding through the air in an unknown dance. He stood still, his limbs frozen stiff as he watched the sun over the horizon; the trees unseen and the tufts of snow ignored as he tried to burn the image of the sun lowering from the sky into his mind.

It would be the last sunset he’d see, but this was his burden to bear.

He was the one that agreed to come, to give up his own life in exchange for the lives of his friends.

Though that did not stop the restless energy twisting his stomach into knots, or the doubts that reared their ugly head when he recalled just  _what_  lurked in the darkness waiting for him. He couldn’t help that even if he tried, even if he were the bravest man alive.

He was terrified at what this all would mean, of the outcome of his death. Because surely, if the rock did not keep him from meeting a permanent end, then the fate of Great Britain was lost. It was not an easy decision to make, but had to. He didn’t have a choice. His life for that of his friends; Voldemort had made himself quite clear when speaking directly into his head.

Almost as though Voldemort knew for a fact that Harry would come.

And perhaps, the man did know. Perhaps the connection had never been as one-sided as he believed? Maybe Voldemort had in fact been seeing the world through Harry’s eyes this entire time without Harry ever knowing this fact.

Harry shuddered, wrapping his arms tightly around himself to stave off the blistering cold air and the anxious energy thrumming through his veins.

The thought that Voldemort could have possibly been listening to every single conversation in his mind was enough to horrify him. To make him feel green with sickness because that would only mean that the monster had known all along how to get Harry within his grasp…

_Maybe Dumbledore had been right when he had denied me the chance of attending the Order meetings._

Harry silenced those thoughts as easily as they’d come, shivering when a blurry ball of white pressed against his cheek, the touch like the gentle prod of a needle. There was no use dwelling on those thoughts, Harry knew. He could no more change the past than he could his fate at this precise second.

 _Not that it had been his to change, really_ …Harry thought, before dropping his arms to his sides and casting a glance to the open path through the Forbidden Forest. It was much too late now to change the decisions he had made, to turn back and tell his friends that he loved them with all his heart.

He had already snuck away from Ron and Hermione without a single mention, and it was time that he fulfilled his end of the bargain. Voldemort had, after all, summoned him with a carefully worded threat, the words searing through layers of emotion and thought, a sibilant promise echoing in his mind.

_Your life or theirs. Choose._

Harry heaved a short breath, lungs unbearably tight as he forced himself to move. He didn’t know how long he stood there watching the sun slowly descend beneath the darkened earth. Didn’t know how long he watched the light blue deepen into royal purple and  then, an oceanic blue. It could have easily been minutes or hours, time never did make sense to Harry after he had fled Hogwarts to sniff out Voldemort’s horcruxes.

His days of running had certainly put things into perspective.

_A blink of an eye, and it would all change. Eons of waiting, and everything remained the same._

Harry pushed on with that burning thought in mind, ignoring the way his fingers trembled and his feet sank deep into the snow. He plunged himself into the darkened wood and didn’t look back to the open field at his back. He let the shadows of the hanging trees swallow him whole, and he didn’t think twice about where it was that he would go.

There was a clearing deep in the canopy, a place Harry had undercovered in his explorations of the place throughout his time at Hogwarts. It was the ideal place for a congregation of the kind Voldemort had, and it was where Harry’s feet led him.

Harry glanced up, to catch one more look of the sky as it descended into darkness, before flickering his gaze to the deep greens and darkened trunks at either side of him.

The Forbidden Forest was just as Harry remembered. Unchanged and seemingly untouched by the battle that had broken out earlier that day.

None of the trees were uprooted, the patches of dirt smooth and unmarred by an errant spell that could sever roots from the ground below. It was picturesque in its innocence, the towering trees over his head a reminder of just how small he was and how his choice never really was his to make in the first place.

_Hermione. Ron. Remus. Sirius. Lily. James._

He would do this for them. Would stop the endless bloodshed and death, even if it meant his own.

His breath caught when he heard something snap in the darkness, just meters at his back. It was a slight sound, one that anyone would have ignored on a good day. But this was not a good day. This was  _war._

There could be enemies hidden within the folds of dirt, behind trees, and right above him. They could be anywhere and it would be a mistake to forget that. Even if Voldemort had ordered a cease fire.

But who would defy their Lord’s order? Who could have stepped away from the clearing without the Dark Lord knowing the wiser?

Harry didn’t know what to make of that.

“Who’s there?” Harry asked, his breath a puff of white smoke that tickled across his lips. He licked at the chapped skin in thought, a nervous gesture he could not restrain as he twirled around in search for the person hidden in the shadows.

Harry winced when his saliva smarted at the broken skin of his bottom lip, unable to recall just when he had hurt himself in the scuffle earlier that afternoon. But he quickly discarded the thought, ignoring the way his bottom lip throbbed painfully to survey his surroundings for the stranger. There was more to worry over than a little bruise and cut on his lip.

But there was nothing but dark trees, and flurries of snow cascading from above his head.

There was no answer to Harry’s question, absolute silence his companion as he tried to make sense of just what could have made the sound. It would be a mistake to ignore something like that, but after several long seconds of waiting for something to happen, Harry was forced to turn his attention back toward the clearing.

He was, after all, not in the Forbidden Forest for an evening stroll. He was there to see Voldemort and sacrifice himself. With only several minutes to spare before Voldemort would decide on whether he would return to Hogwarts and continue his terrorizing.

He couldn’t afford to stand around when his deadline was ticking on by, he knew for a fact that Voldemort would not take kindly to his dawdling. Hesitation would only hurt his friends, and Harry would never be able to forgive himself if his choices led to any possibly injury on their end.

It certainly wasn’t beneath the Dark Lord to murder everyone Harry held dear for being late, after all.

There was another snap, closer than the last, but Harry ignored it this time. He couldn’t afford to play with whoever lurked in the dark. He had somewhere to be…a Dark Lord to face. Lives to save, and a soul piece to rip from between his ribs.

_“He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster…”_

Harry froze, recognizing the voice instantly. There was only one other person, other than Harry, that could speak in Parseltongue. And it was with great reservation that Harry turned his head in the direction the voice had come. His heart beat rapidly in his chest as he slowly turned to face the man that would take his life.

But there was nothing. No Dark Lord taunting him with a lurid smile and swarming crimson eyes.

Harry could only see the shadows of the trees, the last sliver of light from the dying sun elongating the massive size of the greenery surrounding him. It hardly mattered that the world around him should have been white, that his legs were knee-deep in snow. Harry hardly registered that his breaths were visible, and that his fingers were ice-cold from walking through the darkness without a cloak or even a warming charm to keep him protected from the elements.

Voldemort was not there, but Harry  _knew_  he had heard him speak. There was no mistaking the sibilant words, the soft croon dancing along his ear drums as the syllables were spoken.

Harry had heard the Dark Lord. He heard Voldemort’s sibilant tongue twist to shape the vowels and the syllables, felt the way they made warm skin cold with dread. It could not have been in his head, the words did not ring or echo as they often did when the monster burrowed itself into his mind. It had been real.

There was no way Harry was wrong.

Squaring his shoulders, Harry surveyed the quiet space around him. He took in the darkness of the trees, watching as the last rays from the sun disappeared and swallowed him in absolute darkness. He didn’t know how long he remained there, but Harry refused to move. Refused to turn his back on the Dark Lord when he could possibly be there waiting for him to lower his guard.

It was certainly something Voldemort would do.

_“And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.”_

Harry yelped when he felt something cold wrap around the back of his neck, clawed fingers digging so harshly into the skin that Harry could only stiffen in the monster’s hold. He didn’t think to fight it in that instant, did not think to lift his wand and retaliate as he often did.

Harry had come to die. He had come to rip that vile piece of Voldemort’s soul from within him. But he had certainly not expected the Dark Lord to touch him.

“Fitting, is it not?” Voldemort said in perfect English, after a moment of complete silence.

Harry did not know how to respond for several seconds. His mind still reeling from the fact that Voldemort was  _here._  That the monster, rather than wait for Harry to come to him, had instead come to Harry.

Harry had not expected that at all from the vain man. He was certain that Voldemort would never contemplate lowering his status as Lord to do something as…plebeian as this. It was comical, something that made strange amusement curl within the pit of Harry’s stomach.

“What is? That I will die here like all the muggles and wizards you’ve slain? Or that you’ve won?” Harry bit out, voice hoarse from disuse as he tried to make sense of the fact that Voldemort was  _touching_  him.

Without even a twinge of pain from his scar.

The agony that would come with the Dark Lord’s touch was notably absent, the promise of suffering and pain somehow silenced. It shouldn’t have made him as nervous as it did, but he couldn’t stop himself from shuddering underneath the man’s grip.

It was strange, unlike anything Harry had experienced before when in this man’s presence. He was used to pain and suffering, but this…nothingness was new. Harry wasn’t sure if he liked it or not, considering how often change led to more trouble than it was worth.

And it was with startling awareness that Harry finally forced himself to move, to pull away from the fingers that ensnared the back of his neck. Though, resisting Voldemort’s hold was near impossible. It felt as if there were a sticking charm holding their flesh bound together.

Harry yanked, but Voldemort’s hand followed as if he hadn’t struggled at all.

_Shite._

Just as Harry was about to jab the man between the ribs, to punch blindly in the dark, he felt something lap at the tip of his fingers, like freshly cast magic. The touch distracting enough to make him pause, to consider just what the  _hell_  that was.

“Die? Come now, do not be so obtuse. There are far worse things than death, Harry.”

Harry shivered when Voldemort’s cold hand suddenly squeezed the nape of his neck, the nails catching on the skin and easily drawing blood from the rough treatment.

It felt as if death itself was gripping onto him, as if winter were burrowing deep into the folds of his skin to suck out all the warmth that lied underneath.

“Torture, then? Hardly original,” Harry scoffed, hyper aware of just how cold he felt. The tingling of his fingers had not stopped since it had begun, and it was growing more difficult to ignore the longer he remained rooted in place. But he didn’t want to look down, he didn’t want to see and distract himself from the fact that Voldemort was standing too closely behind him.

His fingers felt as though they’d been entirely encased in ice. The needle-like sensation penetrating deep into the skin, like tiny teeth dancing along each nerve ending.

“Death? Torture? It is not as simple as that…” Voldemort hissed, and Harry felt a weight press against his toes, slowly crawling up his shins until his knees felt like they might collapse.

_What is this?_

Harry gasped when his fingers then began to burn, his palms stiff as unbearable cold seized at the soft flesh, his knees nearly giving out when numbness began to penetrate the thick layer of his trousers.

Harry shot his gaze down, to make out just what it was that was happening. To see for himself that what he was feeling was not some trick of the mind.

_What?_

Harry’s stomach dropped, his mouth falling open in disbelief at what he was seeing.

The snow from the ground below was swallowing him whole. It was both white and crystalline at once, the hard shape of it fitting around the tips of his fingers and covering the palms of his hands like a glove.

Harry was being frozen alive.

Voldemort was  _freezing him alive._

Harry struggled, panic seizing his heart like a vice. His heart beat so quickly inside his chest that he was certain it might burst from right out of his rib cage. He had expected an  _Avada Kedavra_. He had expected a  _Crucio_  before greeting his parents and Dumbledore on the other side.

But nothing like this.

No, never something like  _this_.

“W-what are you–?” Harry’s voice came out weaker than he had intended, his tongue heavy as he watched the ice grow and spread. It was now sliding past his wrists and forearms, the snow sliding over his skin like an infection staining once pink flesh a deep black.

Harry could feel the ice as it wrapped tightly around his knees, moving further up his legs until it went past his thighs, the numbness stopping just short of where the zipper of his trousers began.

 _No_.

“Ensuring that you can never fight me again. Your death, as much as it would please me, would only bring me closer to my own.”

Harry’s mouth parted to gasp when Voldemort’s hand fell away from his neck to slide past his pulse point and toward his trembling chin. Voldemort cupped it, and Harry flinched from the iciness. It was no better than the snow currently consuming him.

He wanted nothing more than to run,  to fight the numbness sucking the life from him, but there was nowhere for him to go. The ice held him rooted in place.

_He can’t!_

“A horcrux…all this time. So very clever of the old fool to keep such a secret from me…”

Harry’s mouth parted to speak, but there were no words that he could speak. He closed his mouth when only a soft wheeze met the frigid air.

_He knew._

How had Voldemort uncovered the truth? Where had Harry gone wrong? He was sure that he had kept his mind blank as soon as he learned just how intimately tied he was to the Dark Lord. Hell, he hadn’t known he was a horcrux until just that evening. There was no possible way that he could have uncovered such an insidious truth so quickly…

“But Voldemort knows  _all_. Severus Snape has certainly been useful. My precious Nagini’s venom conveniently lowering his mental protections…”

Harry wanted to cry, horror more cutting than the ice slowly eating him alive.

This was an absolute nightmare.

 _“My horcrux..fighting so valiantly against the dark to only be a part of the darkness himself…_ ”

“No!” Harry shouted, but his cry met deaf ears. Voldemort’s fingers were smoothing across his chin, and there was nothing that he could do but to allow him to do so. The ice had spread up to his neck, numbness following shortly after the agony of ice touching bare flesh. “Please, kill me!”

“Death will never take you from me. You are  _mine_ …”

Voldemort’s fingers dropped from Harry’s chin then, and it took everything within to stop himself from screaming when the ice began to cover his chin, slivers of crystal poking at his trembling lips.

“D-don’t do this. You don’t need to do–mnf!”

And then the ice was covering his mouth, ceasing all protests Harry could think to make.

“But I do, dearest Harry. I cannot leave you running amok, causing trouble for my men.”

Harry felt his vision blur before Voldemort appeared before his eyes, the gaunt reptilian face and bright red eyes almost incandescent beneath the sliver of moonlight that poked from behind the thick, black clouds above.

Voldemort then reached out to tease along Harry’s scar, a sharp nail touching at the clammy skin with a patient flick of his finger.

“You will remain forever at my side, to watch as I remake this world into one better suited for witches and wizards alike. You will be without nothing, and I assure you that with time, you will come to see things in a…”

Voldemort’s eyes flashed with something devious, and Harry felt his insides churn. The ice was now past his nose, and it would only be seconds before he was entirely trapped. Harry hoped that he didn’t look as frightened as he felt, that the tears that wanted to fall, in fact, did not.

Harry refused to give the monster the satisfaction of seeing him break.

Monster, he shouted the word vehemently in his mind. He hoped Voldemort could hear it, even if his mouth was unable to speak.

“…brand new light.”

And then Voldemort’s fingers slipped over his eyes, his fingers removing his glasses from his face.

“I will take great care of this. I do not think you will need this for quite some time.”

Harry glared at the blurred face of the Dark Lord, hoping that his anger translated easily to the monstrous man before the ice finally obstructed his vision, drowning him in complete darkness.

_I will get out. Just you wait._

Harry trembled and struggled from within the ice prison, but his muscles refused to cooperate. His wand had somehow been pried from his holster, and there was absolutely nothing but the horrific darkness and cold.

He shook, but the ice never moved. It was like a second skin, a find layer of glass that refused to bend no matter how much he squirmed inside the prison.

“Oh, and Harry…” Voldemort spoke, his words an echo inside his head. Harry clenched his teeth to stop himself from cursing, wincing when the tiny pinpricks of hardened ice formed along the layer atop his skin and poked at his quivering flesh.

It was a reminder of just how powerful Voldemort was.

“I cannot promise that you’ll…come out intact. Frostbite can be quite cruel. But nothing Lord Voldemort cannot remedy…”  
  
Harry’s throat clenched up with dread, horror slicing through his heart like a rusty blade.  
  
_No._


	23. Alchemy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Alchemy + Tomarry   
> Rating: M  
> Warnings: Dark Themes, Explicit Violence, Depression, Mentions of Character Death, and Angst (Tons of it).
> 
> This was written for reneehartblog. I love her work and she was kind enough to leave me a prompt on tumblr <3 I hope you all enjoy. This is definitely some heavy stuff. Psychologically, mostly.

**“All things are subject to interpretation, whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.”- Friedriche Nietzsche**

* * *

 

“Tell me, Harry. What is it that you know of the world?”

The question came unbidden, the darkness swallowing the faint light trickling from the open entrance-way. It was like a gun-shot in absolute silence.The voice disrupting the little peace Harry had found while dozing off in the small living room.

Harry had not expected it, for this presence to slip through his senses and bleed into the crevices of his mind. Not since he had mastered (though it was arguable if it would ever had satisfied Snape’s standards) the art of Occlumency weeks prior at the camp. It had diluted the heat that came with the strange whispers in his head, with the seductive utterances promising things Harry knew the monster could not achieve.

It had been a mercy to silence that voice, but Harry knew that he would not have the luxury of his mental walls to save him now. Not when Tom Riddle was  _here_ , and not some figment of his imagination. Not some ghost, a sad memory of what he had lost because of a broken soul’s cruelty.

Harry lifted his gaze from his lap, slowly drinking in the sight of dark polished shoes and finely tailored slacks. Tom Riddle’s legs looked thicker than he remembered them looking in the clearing, the outline of cut calves and toned thighs drawing in Harry’s vision despite himself. Similar to how they had looked standing in the clearing over the bodies of his–

_Stop it._

Harry shook himself from the reverie before casting a tired glance at the man. Harry felt his neck protest from how sharply an angle he had to incline his head, but there was no helping this. Harry had been sitting on the chair for some time now, lost in thought before Riddle had come in.

And then Harry looked at him, focused his bespectacled eyes on a face he’d hoped he would never see again. At least, not in the flesh. Because there was no mistaking that Tom Riddle was standing in the middle of his living room, immaculate and pristine as if he’d come straight from a fancy party.

Here was the man rather than the fiction. A piece of the monster, Harry recalled, rather than the whole, watching him with a pleased twist to his lips.

He was no longer a disembodied voice that murmured sweet threats into his head, but  _solid flesh_. He was no longer the ghost that had made Hermione fade like smoke in a windy afternoon or the monster that had murdered Ron in cold blood. He was no longer the locket that had lain between his chest and shirt, its heat pulsing strangely like a beating heart.

Harry slowly raised his hand to clasp around the locket wrapped around his throat, his fingers digging into the metal as if it would relieve him of the danger he was in.

What could he possibly say? What words could he string together to answer such a blithe question as that?

_What do you know of the world?_

Harry knew loneliness. He knew what life was like without his two best friends at his side, to give him strength when he was unsure of his own. He knew of hatred, and the lengths a demon would take to ensure that his plans came through.

Harry knew of monsters and angels. He knew more than he should about the cruelty the world was capable of, that  _Tom Riddle_ was capable of. And he knew that any answer he could think of would never be good enough.

The world was black and white, with hints of red between the curling edges of reality. He knew the birth of Tom Riddle and of the rise of Lord Voldemort. He knew the weight of Tom Riddle’s soul against his chest, of how the weak thing writhed against his ribs through dense metal.

He knew it all and more. But still, he remained silent.

“I can see the words dancing behind your eyes, can taste the sound of it on my tongue. Speak, Harry. What is it that you wish to say?” Tom Riddle said, his rigid posture completely at odds with the almost gentle sound of his voice. Harry felt his mouth go dry, the shock of it enough to make him stand from where he’d been sitting for Merlin knows how long.

_I know loneliness. I know grief. I know loss._

Harry wanted to say, but the words refused to come. He couldn’t admit just how much pain he felt, could not find the courage to voice just how  _alone_  he felt. He couldn’t tell the man that he missed even the company of a dirty soul against his chest, of how he’d rather have shite company than suffer through another moment of the pitying glances from everyone in the camp.

It was, in the end, all he had left now.

And he hated himself for it. He wished he could begrudge everyone that looked pityingly at him. Wished that he could shout and scream at them, show them that he didn’t need that when all he wanted was company. He wanted to hate them for ignoring him, for isolating him in his tent when what he really needed was a firm pat on the back or a shoulder to cry on.

But he couldn’t. He couldn’t blame them when everyone that grew too close to him died. When associating with Harry James Potter was but a death sentence. It was the natural fate of those cherished by the Boy Who Lived. It was the  _reality._

Though, that didn’t change the fact that he was  _lonely_. It did not erase the agony that flared between his ribs at the memory of those lost, of his godfather’s face as he fell through the veil, of Ron’s blue eyes flickering out, and of Hermione’s cries as she vanished like an errant thought. No, it didn’t defeat the reality that Harry wanted even unwanted company to relieve him of this misery.

But still, Harry bit his tongue until iron burned on the flesh. The bitter taste as oppressive as the cloak of grief and apathy in his heart.

He would rather die than say the words swirling in his head. He would rather fall over than give the man the satisfaction. He was Harry James Potter, the Boy Who Lived, and Gryffindor by birth. He was the chosen one, and prophesied to save Britain from the reign of a mad man.

He couldn’t afford to let himself crumble. He was all the resistance had. He couldn’t just roll over and die, even when he wanted nothing more than to just walk to his death and let it be the end of it.

It was his purpose. It was why Dumbledore had sent him and his friends off on this mission. It was why Voldemort wanted to kill him. He had no other choice. Because he just couldn’t just be selfish and give up when so many were counting on him. Not when Ron and Hermione had died in order to defeat the Dark Lord. He couldn’t let their memory be tarnished in this way.

No, Harry knew his fate.

And now, in the presence of the devil himself, he had to make a choice. Even if the desire to just lay on his back and give in was all too tempting. He could not allow the darkness percolating in his heart to swallow him as easily as Tom Riddle’s presence overshadowed the moonlight in his tent. As easily as Tom Riddle had likely found him in the tent, following perhaps, the connection that flowed between them. Even when this was a Horcrux and not the shell of the person the real Voldemort was.

It was funny, in a way. To see the monster he had hidden from for so long in this dingy tent. Riddle looked so completely out of place, with his dark hair and vibrant red eyes. If someone had told him that Tom Riddle would live once more, that another piece of his soul would come to life and chase after Harry as well, he would have thought that stranger mad.

He would have laughed in their face, would have stared them in the eyes as he determined just what to do with that awful joke.

But this was his reality. This was what Harry had to deal with after the Horcrux had overtaken Ron’s mind. Harry had hoped then that his friend would have been able to overcome the sibilant lies, would have been able to resist the allure of a fictitious Hermione beneath the shadows.

And it had certainly looked like Ron would. The vibrant blue of his eyes so intense that Harry had been convinced then that Ron would pull through and smash the sword into the misty locket.

But that never came to pass, and now, all Harry had was his own loneliness and guilt to contend to.

Harry was drawn away from his thoughts by the sound of the man clearing his throat, by the slow twist of pale lips forming into a soft grin. It was an expression Harry had not thought the Dark Lord capable of, accustomed to the leer of Tom Riddle’s more…snake-like counterpart.

But this man was not Voldemort. Well. He wasn’t the  _same_  Voldemort. This was someone entirely new. This was a man that had yet to shed his skin. He was still pretty, resembling the pleasant boy Harry had seen what felt like years ago in the Pensieve in Dumbledore’s office.

“Are you not going to answer? How…rude.” The man said, the smile growing more sharp and unpleasant on his face. “Is this how you treat your guests?”

“No,” Harry replied without thought. It came unbidden, the word sharp on his tongue despite weeks of disuse. He couldn’t remember when was the last time he had spoken to another. The memory of Hermione’s pained cries and Ron’s unseeing eyes robbing him of his ability to speak.

People at the camp thought him broken. That he was a mere shell of who he was.

But Harry knew that he was still himself. He was still Harry Potter. The Boy Who Lived. The boy who killed without ever having to lift his wand or utter a spell.

He was still the precursor of death. He was still the same boy that had placed his hands on Quirrel’s face and watched the man burn.

Harry had not changed. He certainly didn’t feel like he had.

“No, you are not going to answer or no, this is not how you treat your guests?”

Harry paused for a moment, mulling over whether he should entertain the man at all. What did it matter if he answered? What could Tom Riddle possibly want at all? He had a body now, had slipped away from his prison after ripping Ron’s soul straight from his body.

There was no need for him to chase after Harry. No need at all to linger in his thoughts like an infection rotting him from the inside.

“…why are you here? Was it not enough that you got a body of your own? There is nothing more than you could take.” Harry said, watching the way Tom Riddle’s lips grew wider and his eyes brightened. Harry could see the amusement there, could see the way the man struggled to keep himself composed despite all the aloof masks the man had worn as a teenage boy.

“You still don’t know?” Riddle purred, stepping further into the tent without sparring the entrance a glance. Harry watched him prowl like a cat, his steps fluid and his hair like liquid tar as the moonlight shone on the brilliant strands.

He looked angelic beneath the faint glow, his skin more luminous and his lips more pink. His eyes were a wildfire and Harry felt a sharp pain cut him to the bone.

Red like Ron’s hair. Red like Ron’s blood.

Red, red,  _red._

Harry felt his breath suddenly leave him, his hands shaking as he remained perfectly still in the middle of the meager living room. He tried not to flinch when Riddle closed the space with three fluid strides, his presence a force that threatened the little sanity Harry had gathered into his palms.

“…you and I are more than simple enemies. There is more that binds us, Harry. More than the magic that electrifies air, more than a wand in the hands of a powerful witch. What we have, what you are, is something which transcends the laws of time and space. You should never have been, and yet, here you are. Breathing the same air as I, your eyes burning with the same power as I.”

Harry did not move when Riddle lifted his hand to press a light touch to Harry’s cheek, a thumb caressing his cheek bone like a riveted child. Voldemort’s eyes were stormy, the swirl of emotion similar to the burning insanity in Voldemort’s eyes when he had risen from the grave. But this was a different sort of insanity, Harry knew.

This was pleasure and delight. Riddle was pleased. The locket, now reborn, was delighted by something as innocuous as this.

Harry did not understand. He could not understand.

“What are you–”

“Hush, just _feel_. You will miss it if you ignore the call writhing in your blood, twisting inside for a chance to escape…” Riddle interrupted, his voice low and whispy. Harry clicked his mouth shut, and debated fighting him on this. He felt the familiar burn of his tenacity and strong-will surge to life, the emotion foreign as it danced along the back of his tongue.

…but it was not the only thing Harry felt. There was something thrumming in the back of his eyes. A something that Harry could not see even though his glasses sat perfectly atop the bridge of his nose. It was a something Harry had often felt right before bed, a twinge of emotion before he’d smother it through the will of his mind.

Harry felt the initial stirrings of panic, his resignation and apathy breaking apart as the strange magic stirred within him.

Harry did not want it. He did not want to feel anything at all. He did not want to face the reality of what this connection could mean, of what it did mean. It wasn’t normal. It shouldn’t be possible.

But it was, and Harry was certain it would be a mistake to ignore this. To pretend that Riddle’s touch pressing along his flesh did not make his stomach flutter strangely.

“D-don’t touch me,” Harry whispered, the words nearly breaking at the end when Riddle did not listen. His touch was insistent, the pull against his belly sharper and more intense the longer Riddle prolonged the simple contact.

And yet, in spite of this. In spite of the freedom in his limbs, against all rational thought, Harry did not move away. He felt as though his legs had been glued to the ground below. Like a veil had been cast over his senses, defeating the fear and anxiety screaming for him to move.

“But I must, this is your destiny. To live endlessly with my touch and my voice transforming you to fit the purpose you were born to follow. You, Harry James Potter, were made for  _me_.”

Harry shook his head, watching Riddle’s fingers fall away from his cheek before finding the will to move back, and step away. He felt the chair he’d been sitting on earlier bump against the back of his knees, but he paid it no mind. All that mattered in that instant was getting away. He couldn’t permit this. He shouldn’t let Riddle do as he pleased.

Not after he had–

“No, I am my own person. I-I don’t know what this strange connection is, but I am definitely not made for you. Hell, I guess in a sense I was born to defeat you. To watch you fall from that  high horse you’re sitting on. Though…I don’t think that really needs much work from my end, right?. You’re a downright mess. Your snake-faced self has certainly done a _fine_  job of making himself into a complete wan–”

“I know what you’re doing, and it will not work, Harry,” Riddle interrupted, eyes flashing with something predatory. It was the only warning Harry had before Riddle was on him. Riddle’s hand slipped around his waist, his fingers snatching his wand from his pocket before crushing him to Riddle’s chest.

Harry felt all his air leave him, felt the connection flare to life at the same time as Riddle dug his fingers into his hair to pull him closer. Much too close to Riddle’s smiling face.

“You want to provoke me, you want to see me blind with rage so that I not show you the reality of you.  _Of us_.”

Harry grit his teeth and struggled within the man’s arms almost instinctively. He pushed his knees, slipped his hands around the man’s chest to dig his fingers into Riddle’s ribs. The violence was heady, the fear was nauseating as Harry watched Riddle’s gaze flicker downward to eye the promise of violence in Harry’s hands before turning back to Harry’s own, verdant eyes.

Harry glared, and Riddle laughed. The sound dark and deep, melodic and jarring in the otherwise silent room.

“Yes, go on. Hurt me. Show me just how much I’ve  _changed_  you. Show me just how mine you are.”

And then Harry saw red, toxic anger rushing from up his spine before he attacked. He tugged harshly on Riddle’s shirt, he kicked at the man’s knees, punched at the man’s gut.

Harry saw the red of Ron’s hair in his mind’s eye. He saw the red pools of blood dripping from the open wound in his best friend’s chest. He could practically taste the metal on his tongue, could almost reach out and touch the substance between his palms.

Harry leaned forward, unable to erase the anguish and the memory of Ron’s brutal death from his mind, before biting down on Tom’s shoulder. There was a rush of something, a heat more suffocating than the anger welling in his chest, but Harry was too far gone now.

He didn’t care when something coppery exploded in his mouth, didn’t care that his fingers were wet and that his toes ached from kicking as hard as he could. It didn’t matter that his teeth twinged with pain, and that he was gnawing on skin with more force than he thought able. Nothing mattered but the anger, the oppressive heat and the rage.

The delicious, blinding rage.

“ _Yess, that’s it…_ ” Harry heard Riddle croon into his head, and it was like cold water had been poured over his head.

Harry moved so quickly he was surprised the world around him had not tilted on its axis, that he had not slipped from his shaking legs in his haste to get away. He shot his gaze to the entrance way, unable and unwilling to look at the man he’d practically mauled like some…animal.

_Merlin, what have I done?_

Harry wanted to be sick. He could feel the viscous fluid between his fingernails, could feel them between his fingers and on his chin. He could taste the metal on his tongue, and Harry felt his throat burn with his desire to upchuck the little sustenance he had eaten for lunch earlier that day.

Harry chanced a glance to his hands, and flinched at the bright red. It was jarring, the sticky substance like the screams of the dying in a silent hall.

Harry closed his eyes immediately, and ignored the sound of soft laughter a short distance in front of him. If he just pretended Riddle was not there then perhaps he could–

“Oh,  _Harry_. You are like raw metal, waiting to be beaten and melted into the perfect blade. Look at how easily you gave in to the call for violence…such potential, such callousness when in the face of an enemy…”

“No, I am nothing like you.  _Nothing_!” Harry shouted, eyes shooting open to shoot the monster a glare.

And the sight that met him was something Harry was sure would haunt him for the rest of his days. It was something out off a horror film. It was the second most horrible thing he had ever seen in his life, nearly as awful as Ron’s dead body.

“We are more alike than you think. And with time, I am sure I can transform you from blackened coal to gold…” Riddle murmured, but Harry barely heard him over the sound of blood rushing through his ears.

Riddle’s neck was red, the skin torn and ripped like a rubber band pulled too tightly. The skin was frayed, and Harry felt his stomach heave when Riddle lifted one hand to press into the wound and pull a tuft of skin that had broken from his throat.

“It’s fascinating, really. I have learned that the Philosopher’s stone is not the only thing that could be created through alchemy…” Riddle said, casting his gaze to the mound of flesh from his neck before turning his attention back to Harry.

Harry felt acid burn his throat, his stomach churning when Riddle began to move, his steps inaudible as he skirted around the wooden chair propped against Harry’s meager dining table. Harry slipped his fingers to his pocket, noticing then that Riddle had returned his wand. He quickly wrapped his fingers around its comforting weight and pointed it at Riddle’s approaching form, unable to think of when and how Riddle had found the chance to slip it into his trousers.

Riddle’s gaze did not falter, boring so deeply into Harry’s own panicked gaze that Harry was certain he could feel his mental walls crack.

“With proper equipment and patience, people can also be made into something new. Into something  _better_.”

“I’d rather die.” Harry declared instantly, ignoring for the moment the metal in his mouth, the stickiness in his fingers, to speak. He would worry about that later, he would think about his actions later, but for now…

Now, Harry had to act.

“In a manner of speaking, you will. To be reborn, you must  _die_. But do not fret, it will only be temporary. What use are you to me permanently broken?”

“You’re absolutely mad if you think I’ll just let you do as you please. If you think for one second that I’ll t-turn into whatever it is that you want me to become. My name is Harry Potter, and there is nothing you could do. Nothing you could say, that will ever change that.”

“Even rock collapses after constant pressure from the ocean.”

Harry raised his wand higher, and Riddle smirked at him. Pleasure and amusement swimming within the crimson pools as he stopped just centimeters from Harry’s wand. His chest brushing along the wood, seemingly uncaring of the fact that Harry was threatening to curse him to oblivion.

“You will collapse,  _my Horcrux_. And when you do, I will be there. Ready to catch you as you fall.”


	24. Lace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For Jamie <3
> 
> Prompt: Lace + Harrymort  
> Rating: M  
> Warnings: Canon-Typical Violence, One-sided Unresolved Sexual Tension, Torture
> 
> Don’t know what this is. This took me longer to write. I wanted to write smut, but the muse refused. Please excuse my typos. Also, if you haven’t guessed it already. This is probably my fave trope for this ship ^^; I hope you like it, irrespective of this.

A veil had fallen over his eyes, the familiar weight drawing a soft breath from his lips. The sensation was the same as all the times before. Identical in that his enemy occluded his vision; that the world ceased to exist outside of the four walls he was currently sitting within. **  
**

Why this was so?

Harry could not hazard a guess. He had tried one too many times to decipher just what it was that ran through the old man’s head, and still, Harry had yet to discern the answer. So here he was, sitting idly in the dining room, waiting for heaven knows what to happen with a bloody blindfold pressed against his eyes and no real explanation as to why.

Just a simple, “stay still,” and, “put on the bloody blindfold,” by his generous babysitter.

It didn’t matter that this was the status quo. That this was a common occurrence ever since he’d been forced into the Dark Lord’s marvelous care. It would be stupid for Harry to think that Voldemort was not planning something, that the man had no purpose for blindfolding him. Voldemort never acted without intention; Harry had seen enough memories of the Dark Lord’s younger years to know just how Voldemort functioned.

But again, the issue always went back to  _why_. Why did the Dark Lord blindfold him every night before dinner? Why did the Dark Lord force him to  _eat_  with him at all? Harry’s stomach turned, nerves frayed. It was anxiety-inducing to not know. Completely unsettling that he had to follow along with a madman’s whims.

“ _Harry_ …how are you this evening?”

The sudden sound of the sibilant voice was enough to stand the hairs on Harry’s arms on end. It didn’t matter that Harry heard it often. It didn’t matter that every single night he would be subjected to that very same question, while blindfolded and forced to sit at the dinner table.

None of it mattered.

There was a script to be followed, one that Harry knew none of the lines for.

_Bastard._

“…The same as always. Can’t say the shade of the paint changes much when you’re imprisoned in the same four bloody walls.”

Harry’s remark was scathing, full of all the vitriol he could muster within his body.

It was the only control he really had over his situation since the man had kidnapped him. He had believed the Polyjuice trick would work too, that he’d be able to slip past the Dark Lord’s non-existent nose and make it out unscathed. But that had certainly not been the case.

The whole affair had gone the exact opposite of  _swell_ , in his honest opinion. It was disturbing just how quickly Voldemort had spotted him. His malignant eyes catching his own almost instantaneously. It didn’t matter that there were at least ten different copies of himself flying through the darkened sky. None at all when the Dark Lord had managed to sniff him out like an offensive odor.

It was  _absurd_ , really. Though when was Harry’s life not a case of Murphy’s Law? When did brilliant plans not go awry in the most unexpected of ways?

_Hedwig._

Harry cringed as if he’d been hit, recalling with vivid clarity how the Dark Lord had struck his most loyal companion down when she’d tried to save him. He wished he could have saved her, that he could have done  _something_  to have saved her from the killing curse he had flung at her in rage.

Harry released a soft, shuddering breath at the memory.

But there had been no time to grieve for her. No time at all in the seconds Voldemort had seized him by the throat and apparated them away. He couldn’t afford to cry and to think about her when he was in danger, when at any moment’s notice the bastard could exploit that weakness.

…So yes, Harry was more than a little bitter. Especially when he had not had even a single moment of respite to grieve for his friend. It was only fair that he take any and all opportunity to defy this man. There was satisfaction in knowing that he’d pissed off the Dark Lord, that even in a position of complete powerlessness he could still get underneath the man’s skin.

It was well worth living through the Cruciatus curse.

Harry sensed rather than saw the man’s irritation flare, the dinner table the only barrier between them as Voldemort’s fury erupted, his magic like writhing snakes lapping at his skin.

“Rude as always. I don’t suppose your upbringing allowed for such a privilege.”

Harry winced as if struck.

_Wow._

Before Harry could think to say something scathing in return, Voldemort continued on as if he hadn’t been the cause of Harry’s shitty upbringing in the first place.

“Now then, I believe that your dinner is served. You should eat it while the charms are still in effect.”

Harry frowned. He’d sooner eat glass than listen to a single thing the man said. Not after a comment like  _that._

“Get stuffed.” Harry said instead, lips twisting into a vicious smirk when Voldemort released a sharp exhale in irritation.

Oh, he was annoyed?  _Good._

“You are trying my patience, Harry.” Voldemort warned, but Harry willfully ignored the threat.

“And your point is? I am your  _prisoner_ , not your minion. I don’t have to be civil to you. You killed Hedwig. You kidnapped me and nearly  _killed_  me once already. You’re bloody mad if you think‒”

“ _Crucio_.”

Harry never finished his rant.

Harry felt his lungs completely deplete of air from the force of the spell. It was fire and ice, the warring sensations running up his skin and tugging at each of his nerve endings. Harry could not say a word, the syllables lost to the agony that suddenly pierced through each of his limbs, like knives cutting flesh, the blade stabbing deep into the bed of his fingernails.

He ached in places he’d never hurt before. Tears streamed from the corners of his eyes, and Harry was never more grateful of the fact that he was blindfolded then. Anything was better than showing this man weakness. Anything was better than showing just how affected he was by the strength of Voldemort’s spell.

“You will treat me with the respect. You will mind that tongue or I will mind it for you, you foolish boy.”

Harry closed his teeth around his bottom lip to stifle the scream that threatened to come up his throat. It was like a current trying to force its way through a small crack, like a dam ready to burst at any moment’s notice if left unchecked. But Harry bit until he bled, silencing the cries because he absolutely refused to give him the satisfaction.

He would not give in. He would not  _heel_.

But then the pain grew worse.  _So much worse_.

Harry felt his spine bend without any true control, felt the precise second he arched and threw his head back from the visceral sensation. His fingers dig into the carpeted ground for purchase, unable to recall when he had fallen onto the unforgiving floor, but uncaring of that small detail when he felt like he were being burned alive. All he could see was black, the blindfold exacerbating rather than dulling the agony, his senses attuned to every mouthful of air he sucked into his lungs. All Harry could feel was acid flowing through his veins, and he wanted nothing more than for the abuse to end.

But still, he did not scream. Even when he wanted nothing more than to ease the pressure crushing his lungs.

And then the pressure compounded on itself, the scream like bile churning in his stomach when his fingers felt though they were now being snapped one by one, like his elbows and knees were being fractured in time with each breath Harry took. It was too much, even for him to resist. He could scarcely breathe, his lungs crying out under the assault.

 _Please make it stop!_  Harry thought, before the pressure gave. Before he could no longer cling to his resistance.

Harry screamed like he never had before. No longer able to hold in the cries; the feeling of his spine being twisted and pulled was as if the magic alone would snap his spine right in half.

“ _Delicious_.” Harry heard Voldemort speak from somewhere above him, the parseltongue like water flowing through a river. Rapid and unyielding, it broke through the whirlwind of Harry’s emotions, the agony giving way momentarily.

But the relief was short lived.

Harry cried out when he felt something latch onto the back of his head and yank painfully on his hair. A hand, perhaps? A claw? Harry did not know what it was, but all he knew was that it hurt. And that it bent his head so far back that he was sure his neck might snap in two.

“Will you obey?” Voldemort said, and Harry felt another rush of agony and hate dance within his veins. He felt acid creep up his throat, the rush enough to let him shape the words that formed along the crevices of his brain.

“N-never,” Harry gasped, barely managing to string the words together since Voldemort had yet to lift the spell drowning him in absolute misery. But Harry couldn’t just leave Voldemort’s mocking words unanswered. No, Harry had to show him just how little he valued the man’s opinion. Voldemort could just shove his statement right up his‒

“Do you enjoy being punished, Harry?”

And then the agony ceased, the magic sucking what little strength Harry had left like a black hole.

Harry collapsed onto the ground, a weak cry falling from his lips when the hand‒ _yes, it was Voldemort’s hand_ ‒kept a firm grip on his hair. His neck protested at the strange angle it was bent at, his arms like heavy weights, powerless to push against the ground to relieve the pressure on his neck.

Harry was certain Voldemort had ripped several strands of hair from his head in that endeavor.

Seconds passed before Harry could compose himself. His body still shaking with the force of Voldemort’s spell, but it was loads better than being pulled under that dangerous current.

“W-what kind of bloody question is that? I definitely don’t like‒”

“I do not believe you,” Voldemort interrupted, his voice coming from somewhere directly in front of him. The Dark Lord sounded amused, like he was ready to break into laughter at any moment. It was unsettling the way Harry could tell, how the ripples in his voice could alert Harry instantly of a change in his mood.

“They bring you here under my orders. You are asked to sit and have dinner with me precisely at 7:00 o’clock sharp each evening. And yet, each time any attempt at polite conversation is rejected.”

That sounded about right. Harry would never entertain even the thought of politeness with this man. Sure, it was foolish to poke the beast as often as he did, but he couldn’t help it. Even when he tried to ignore him, his mouth could never remain perfectly shut. It was like it had a mind of its own, never listening to reason, or heeding any warnings.

Remaining silent was the smarter choice, the safer strategy in defying the Dark Lord, but just as easily as it was for Harry to get underneath Voldemort’s skin, Voldemort was just as skilled at getting underneath Harry’s. It was, to his dismay, a two-way street.

“What? Did you expect me to ask you to pass me the salt and pepper over dinner? To make small talk with the man that murdered my parents?” Harry mocked, wincing when Voldemort tightened his grip on his head in retaliation.

“Is it wise to antagonize me so? To make your stay far more unpleasant than it could be? You are fed, you are clothed, and you are allowed a room of your own. I could take all these amenities away and show you just how‒”

“Do it. Hardly matters to me what you do. The Order will find me and they will break me out. We will  _win_.”

Voldemort’s hand stilled in his hair, his grip relaxing before disentangling from his hair entirely. Harry’s head dropped onto the ground, his cheek getting the brunt of the fall. He was certain he’d have a bruise by the end of it, if the throbbing was anything to go by.

A heavy silence fell between them.

Harry swallowed, anticipation curling in his stomach when the man had yet to speak. It was  _always_  a bad sign when the Dark Lord was quiet. It could mean one of two things. He was either plotting, or incredibly angry. And Harry was certain it would be the latter of the two.

Voldemort was  _angry_. Harry could feel it in his bones, the way the connection between them flared to life with the rolling storm of his emotions.

It was the calm before the storm, the silence before the rage. And Harry waited for the man to explode, to curse him and drag him back to his room without dinner. As he often did.

But Voldemort did not react as Harry expected.

_Voldemort laughed._

He started bloody laughing. It sounded like the Dark Lord was choking on air, like he could not help but release the strangled sounds from the strength of his delight.

Harry was floored, unnerved and unsure at what to do despite his senses screaming for him to rise from where he’d fallen on the ground. But his limbs refused to cooperate, they were like jelly after being held under the Cruciatus curse for as long as he’d been.

Could it have been a minute? Could have been an  _hour_? Harry did not know, but before he could ask Voldemort to explain just what he found so damn amusing, Voldemort spoke.

“Harry, Harry,  _Harry_ …how charming. How naive you are.”

Harry gasped when he felt something warm dance along his nerve endings before he was forcefully lifted by an invisible force. He was floating in midair, the pit of his stomach protesting at the weightless feeling that had fallen over him while blindfolded.

Harry wished he could at least see. That he could at least know what Voldemort’s expression looked like in that second. Because Harry had been sure the man was going to curse him, not  _laugh_  at him. None of this made any bloody sense.

“The Order will not come, I can assure you of this. Your mudblood pet and your bloodtraitor friend will not be performing any sort of heroics to free you from my grasp.”

Harry’s arms prickled with unease, a full body shudder running up his spine when the man practically purred the words out like a promise. As if he was certain, as if he knew for a fact that they would not come.

 _What has he done?_  Harry thought instantly, the implication of Voldemort’s words forcing image after unpleasant image in Harry’s head.

He saw Ron’s blue, twinkling eyes shattering like glass. He saw Hermione’s dimpled smile, lips stretching too wide. He heard their laughter, and he felt their hands pressed up against his shoulders, digging their hands into his flesh. He could see them clearly behind the opaque blindfold on his face, their flesh rotting away…

And it was with great horror that Harry realized just what Voldemort had meant.

_No._

“W-what did you do to them!? Where are they? What did you  _do_?” Harry panicked, his voice desperate and angry all at once as he struggled to free himself from the force keeping him perfectly still. It didn’t matter that his stomach was protesting heavily or that he sounded like he was pleading rather than demanding the man to tell him.

Harry needed to  _know_. He needed it more than his stomach needed food, more than his lungs needed air.

“I have done nothing to your friends. Not yet, at least.”

Harry slumped into the invisible hold, his relief so palpable that he didn’t bother to mask it.

“But they are here, and I cannot promise that they will remain unharmed. They took quite the risk infiltrating this estate…and I certainly cannot leave such an offense against me  without punishment.”

“Don’t!” Harry shouted instantly, his voice echoing within the small room like there were a thousand versions of himself screaming out the word. Harry renewed his struggles, unable to keep himself still when Voldemort could potentially harm his friends. When the man didn’t sound like he gave a cared at all about whether he killed them or tortured them, or both.

Harry wouldn’t let him. He refused to let any harm come to them, not after they risked so much to save him. If Harry was tortured and hurt, he could live with this fact. He could bite his tongue and survive the suffering. But for Voldemort to torture his friends…no, it was unacceptable. Harry couldn’t stomach it,  _wouldn’t_  stand for it.

So he said the first thing he could think of. All reason be damned.

“I’ll behave. I’ll…stop being a complete arse. Just don’t hurt them, please.” The words were like battery acid on his tongue, but he meant every single word he said. He seized on the one thing Voldemort had seemed to want from him and threw it at the man in the hopes that it would work. He’d kiss the man’s feet if that meant he’d keep his friends out of trouble. If it would be enough to get them out of harm’s way.

“A compelling offer. But what makes you so sure that that is what I desire from you, Harry Potter?”

Harry swallowed at the hint of curiosity in the man’s voice. He would admit that he hadn’t thought that far in advance. The words had shot out of him without much thought, the only thing running through the back of his head the safety of his friends and the conversation they’d been having earlier that evening.

Voldemort had chastised him about his lack of politeness, had cursed him over a simple thing as mouthing off at him. Sure, Harry had seen the man kill others for less. But still, the man’s fixation with his behavior had been the first thing he’d thought of before running his mouth.

He didn’t necessarily have a reason, but he wouldn’t tell that to Voldemort. Not when this could possibly save his friends from harm.

“You bring me to the dining hall to eat with you. You blindfold me and you ask about my feelings, and my thoughts. You don’t keep me confined in a cell and you don’t starve me when you otherwise could. You haven’t killed me yet when you’ve spent most of my life trying to put me six feet under. There is something you want from me, and whatever it is, I’ll give it to you. J-just don’t harm my friends.”

Harry’s throat felt tight, the weight of his words as oppressive as Voldemort’s magic keeping a firm grasp of his body. But he had said them. He had voiced the concerns he had had from the moment he’d been captured rather than killed. He didn’t know why Voldemort had not killed him, didn’t know why Voldemort had not kept him hidden away in the dingiest cell the Malfoy’s had. Harry simply didn’t know.

He had asked the man before for an explanation, but had received none each time. Perhaps, this time, he might humor him. Maybe he might even explain what the blindfold was for. What the purpose of this whole charade was.

Harry felt clothes rustle in the dark, like the sound of a bird’s wings flapping in the air. Something cool pressed against his cheeks, and he shivered. The soft touch spread along his face, and Harry swallowed nervously when a warm finger then  touched his forehead, tracing the ridges of his scar in a reverent fashion.

Harry jolted when a sharp nail dug into the skin, and he immediately tried to pull away. But there was nowhere for him to go. Voldemort’s magic held him rooted in place, unable to do nothing more than clench his fists and wiggles his toes.

Harry didn’t know what was happening.

“Sign a magical contract submitting to my terms, and I will spare your friends.”

Harry froze, disbelief clouding his senses.

_No, I couldn’t possibly–_

“You will swear that you will never raise your wand against me unless I have permitted you otherwise. You will swear that you will never return to your allies and that you remain in my care indefinitely.”

Harry’s breaths came quickly, as if all the air had been sucked out of the room.

“And you will do so tonight, or I will consider their lives forfeit.”

Harry felt his stomach turn at even the thought of serving this man. He’d rather die, he’d rather suffer through the Killing Curse and be done with it.

But he couldn’t leave his friends to die. He couldn’t.

“Spare all of my friends. Spare everyone that I care about, give them a chance to renounce themselves, even. And I’ll sign whatever it is you want me to.” Harry said desperately, and winced when Voldemort laughed silkily at his poor attempt to change some of the terms.

“And what would you give me in exchange for the lives of the other traitors? I had intended to spare the Pureblood children, so much magical blood has already been lost. But what reason do I have to spare the mudbloods fighting in this war? What are their filthy lives worth?”

Harry swallowed, unable to form an answer to his question.

What could Harry possible give him? What did he have that Voldemort could possible want? Harry was thrown.

So Harry, for the second time that day, said the first thing he could think of.

“My loyalty. I’ll give you my loyalty in exchange for their lives.” Harry said, throat tight.

Voldemort’s fingers on his scar stilled, as if considering Harry’s words.

Harry’s heart began to race when the hand finally dropped, fingers catching on his blindfold.

And then, Voldemort’s fingers tugged at the fabric, the lace falling away from his eyes to reveal bright, white light. Harry hissed in pain closing his eyes immediately to shield his eyes from the too bright light.

"Your loyalty…” Voldemort whispered, tone curious.

It was several seconds before Harry was finally able to open his eyes. He blinked away the dark spots dancing along his vision, ignoring the silence that had fallen between them once more, before he settled his gaze on Voldemort’s pale, gaunt face. His skin looked waxy underneath the white light above their heads. Harry might even say, translucent, with how readily he could discern the faint blue veins twisting underneath the flesh in spite of his poor vision.Harry was revolted by the sight, but he said nothing nor turned away.

There was nowhere for him to go, and the strange emotion glimmering within the man’s crimson eyes made it difficult to even blink.

They glittered like rubies, hints of garnet and pinks pooled within the iris. Harry, if he squinted, could almost see himself reflected in there. They were too bloody close.

“You would give me your loyalty in exchange for their lives?” Voldemort said, head tilting to one side as if he were seeing Harry for the first time.

Harry sucked in a sharp breath, fingers shaking nervously. Voldemort was too close, and there was a gleam in his eyes that did not sit well for Harry at all. He was looking at him like he were some specimen to be inspected, like he had found something particularly interesting and now could not be bothered to look away.

It took Harry longer than he’d like to gather himself, but when he did, he clenched his jaw and shot the man the most determined expression he could muster. He wasn’t feeling particularly courageous in that second, but it didn’t matter how he felt.  He knew what he needed to say. He knew what he needed to do to ensure that everyone made it out alive.

“Yes. I would.”

The words felt like a death sentence, strange and foreign on his tongue. But Harry wouldn’t have it any other way, would have said nothing else in that moment. He would do whatever it took to protect his friends. Even if it meant selling his soul to the Dark Lord.

Voldemort’s expression froze for a moment, and then, just as Harry was about to lose his mind, a slow smile spread along the man’s lips.

It was the most terrifying thing Harry had ever seen in his life. Single-handedly more frightening than Bellatrix’s maniacal grin when he had his unfortunate run in with her at the Ministry of Magic.

Harry felt rather than saw Voldemort’s magic flare out, the power of it like the heat of the scorching afternoon sun. He shuddered, feeling the waves of magic lap at his skin before settling over his eyes. Just where the blindfold had shrouded his vision mere moments earlier.

“Have I told you Harry, exactly how lovely  _lace_  looks on you?”

Harry swallowed.

_What?_

“Simply how you look with your eyes hidden away, the cloth’s intricate patterns woven through the material as you flounder over your meal?”

_What was happening?_

“Do you not want to know why it is that you are not dead? To know why I deny you the privilege of your vision when in my presence? Why I treat you better than you deserve?”

Harry was silent. He did not want to know anymore. He had been curious certainly, but the man’s eyes. They burned with a strange emotion, with something that made Harry’s skin crawl with unease.

Voldemort did not wait for him to answer, his hand instead coming up to trail pale, clawed fingers against his cheekbone.

“ _You are my Horcrux…your soul irrevocably intertwined with my own_ ,” Voldemort hissed, the parseltongue dancing along his senses. Harry froze, his disbelief and horror exploding so viciously that Harry did not know when one emotion began and the other ended. It wasn’t possible. It  _couldn’t_  be possible.

But how was it that Harry could sense Voldemort’s thoughts? How was it that he could see into his head as if he were living through Voldemort’s flesh? Dumbledore’s explanation had been unsatisfactory back then. Perhaps, this was what Dumbledore had not wanted to tell him. A burden that he did not think Harry was ready to bear.

 _Merlin, this couldn’t be true_. But the weight of his words felt more oppressive than the magic restraining him. It felt more constricting, more suffocating than any shackles Voldemort could put on him.

_No._

“My emotions, my thoughts, my dreams are as much a part of you as they are mine. I  _own_  you, Harry Potter. Far more completely than anyone could ever dream,” Voldemort said in English then, caressing Harry’s quivering cheek in a reverent fashion. Slow and fluid, like death kissing along warm skin.

Harry felt like he might be sick. It couldn’t be true. He couldn’t have a piece of‒

Harry’s mouth trembled, but he couldn’t find the words.

“And here you are, contrary and resistant. Fighting the connection that grows stronger with each passing day you reside here…”

Voldemort’s fingers slipped away from his cheek, moving past his ear to thread through his hair. Harry shuddered at the strange, ticklish sensation, mouth parting open to tell Voldemort to stop.

But the words died in his throat when Voldemort then leaned in so close that there was only a hair’s breadth of space separating their lips, the proximity nearly making him cross-eyed.

“Nothing delights me more than  _conquering_  you, than watching you fumble and rely on your Lord when I have stripped you of your vision. As poor as it already is without my own influence.”

 _Voldemort was mad. He was completely, totally, absolutely mad_. Harry thought in that second, horror seizing him completely when the man inhaled deeply, eyes closing momentarily as if he were relishing this moment.

_Merlin, please._

“And now here you are, begging me to spare the lives of these vermin in exchange for your loyalty. Are they worth the price to be paid? Are they worth your pride and your freedom?” Voldemort asked, and Harry tried not to gasp when Voldemort’s firm grip on his head tightened, their lips nearly brushing.

Harry could taste Voldemort’s breath on his tongue, like freshly spilled blood and frozen air seeping through the cracks of an icebox. And he wanted nothing more than to pull away from this, than to tell Voldemort to fuck off.

But he didn’t. This was a test. Voldemort wanted a specific answer from him, wanted to show him just what it entailed to give up his agency for the lives of his friends and perfect strangers. He knew his answer, even before Voldemort had asked him the question.

“Yes.”

Just one word was enough to change everything in that second.

Harry watched Voldemort’s restraint shatter, noted the second bright red eyes exploded with triumph and his lips curved into a pleased grin. His magic erupted around him, the current overtaking Harry completely.

“A fine choice,  _my Horcrux_.” 


	25. Circles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: When it happened to you enough you learn to pick up on it + Harry
> 
> Rating: T
> 
> Warning: Depression, Mentions of Character death, Grief, Mindfuck
> 
> I never know what I am doing. I hope you like this either way c: This is for the theofficialoctagod on tumblr!

Harry wanted to be surprised. Truly, he did.

The sky above his head was growing darker by the second, the pleasant breeze growing chillier the longer he remained outside of Hogwart’s walls. It was nothing new, the winter was always colder than those he had experienced in his younger years in Little Whinging. It was like the touch of death, as if the season itself wanted to sap up all the warmth a human body could harness. 

It was cold enough that he shouldn’t have been outside at all, that he should have headed back inside because that was the  _ reasonable  _ thing to do. Harry was all too aware that it was the logical thing, but he also knew that he simply could not just leave things as they were. He couldn’t just  _ ignore  _ the reason he was even out there in the first place.

So Harry stayed, fingers on the verge of frostbite. They were stiff, nearly numb with how frigid the air was as it fanned across his cheeks, but he didn’t bring his hands nearer to his face to breathe some warmth into his palms.

Not when he was...potentially losing his mind. 

Harry shivered when a passing breeze kissed along the nape of his nape, unable to resist the involuntary reactions the conditions seemed to evoke in him. It was another reminder of just how helpless he was in the grand scheme of things, he couldn’t fight nature even if he was magic nor could he fight the figure just beyond him, swaying in the dark like the light of a burning candle. 

He wanted nothing more than to leave and abandon this, but he didn’t have the luxury of choice. He couldn’t simply turn his back and forget that the figure just an arm’s length away didn’t exist at all. It was not possible. It was certainly not an option.

_ At least, never for him. _

Harry could no more leave the bright blue sky fading into deep purples and blues than he could change the past. He was no actor, he was powerless to change the outcome of things once they’ve unfolded. It was what it was, and now, in this moment, Harry was merely an observer to the scene unfolding before his eyes. Always watching, always waiting, that’s what Harry was sure of. He never did anything and--

“Harry…”

Harry tried not to flinch at the sound of his name, he tried to remain strong, to cling to the tenacity that he so often manifested when presented in a shite situation. He breathed in deeply through his lungs, catching how the faint hiss broke the thick silence that had settled between him...and the monster. 

It was always this way. It was always his name first and foremost. The sound of it coming from such a weak and faint voice like a nail on a chalkboard. Weak,  _ always so weak _ , but always enough to sent Harry in a frenzy. 

Always enough to tear out emotions Harry didn’t want to feel.

Harry took another deep breath and clenched his fingers into tight fits. He felt each groove of his stubby nails cutting into the skin, how it brought some feeling back to otherwise numb fingers as he tried to settle the chaos that only this...creature could bring.

Harry thought of Sirius then, dragging the man’s laughter from out beyond the dark. Perhaps, if he pretended that Sirius was there with him now, with his curious black eyes and his sheepish smile urging him to speak, he could find the courage to keep going. He could turn his back, abandon the monster that stood several meters away in the tall, wet grass. He could find the strength that he needed to simply leave, to urge his trembling-- _ when had they started shaking? _ \--arms to clasp onto his wand and flee.

But there was nowhere for Harry to run, there was nowhere to hide. There was no Sirius to fall back to, there was no laughter when Sirius had done something particularly sneaky. There was none of that mischievous gleam that would flash in Sirius’s eyes when sharing stories of his days with the Marauders. 

There was none of that now. Sirius was  _ dead _ , taking with him every opportunity Harry could have had for a family.

Harry bit his lip, narrowing his eyes into a glare to stave off the burning in the corner of his eyes. This was too much, too suddenly. He shouldn’t have gone outside at all, he should never had followed the call of that familiar voice. He should have pretended the monster didn’t exist.

But how did one run when the creature was in one’s head? How did one swim up for air when the ocean was already drowning his lungs?

Harry watched the shadows melt around the monster’s shape, red eyes made more pronounced by the deepening of the sky and the oppressive darkness of the man’s robes. Harry could not help but think of how closely the creature resembled the grim reaper, of just how perfectly the title suited him in that instance. The monster was one with the black of the falling sun, the clouds hiding the purples and oranges of the horizon.

It was all too fitting. It would only make sense that he, a monster that scratched and clawed from out of a cauldron would be home with the very darkness that birthed him.

Vol-- _ The monster, the nightmare, and the ghost-- _ looked perfectly at home beneath the dying sun, and Harry wanted to laugh incredulously at just how fucked up this all was. 

They were both silent for what Harry felt was an eternity. The sound of his name spoken from between those poisonous lips ringing in the back of his mind as Harry considered his options in that moment. He knew that the monster was not  _ really  _ there; knew that there was nothing Harry could really do in that moment to dispel the hallucination until it had run its course. It was best to simply wait it out alone until it left, until Vol-- _ the monster _ \-- faded from existence. He couldn’t simply head back to his dorm when he could still hear and see it as if it were alive and breathing.

His friends would ask him what he was staring at, they would ask him why he was lost in thought while in the middle of a conversation. It would lead to too many questions Harry was not prepared to answer, so Harry dug his feet into the ground in spite of his desire to flee.

Harry had to bear through this. It was never a good idea to interact with others when the hallucinations commenced. People already thought him unstable, the Daily Prophet doing little for his reputation even after the monster had exposed himself…

Harry clenched his jaw when the creature did not speak, when its red eyes trapped his own in an uncomfortable vice. Emerald and red. Poison and death. The color of the spell that stole the breath from his god father’s lungs and the monster that had whispered in his head to take his revenge. 

Harry fought of the nausea the memory brought, the churning in his belly immediately stamped down in favor of speaking into the seemingly empty field.

_ He was already going crazy, what did it matter now that he was speaking to a ghost? _

“Why won’t you just go away?” Harry asked, ignoring the discomfort that always came with speaking to air because the monster was not real. At least, he wasn’t to everyone else. He was a shadow, always lurking in between the spaces of his spine like blood dripping from open wounds. He was there, always  _ there _ , but Harry knew the monster wasn’t real, knew that it was just the product of a distraught mind. Dumbledore had said as much, Madame Pomfrey had suggested the same as well.

They had said that Harry was simply tired, that the trauma he had experienced would permanently scar him. The imprint of Voldemort’s influence on his mind would never leave, even after he expelled him from out of his head. Yes, Harry understood it all but it didn’t stop the bile from burning up the back of his throat. 

None of those explanations could cleanse the stain that only this monster could leave on his skin, that he had  _ left  _ in his head when he ripped his way through it back at the Ministry. Harry could feel the memory of his mind like a fine line cutting through smooth glass, like a crack in the dam that was almost near full capacity, its waters trickling from over the top.

Harry was barely holding himself together, but still, he held on for the sake of his friends, for the sake of this war that was brewing. This image was not  _ real _ , it wasn’t Vol-- _ the monster _ . Harry hated that he had to keep reminding himself of this fact.

The man was silent, and Harry felt annoyance flicker in the back of his mind, like a ripple in a placid lake. It was the first time in weeks he had felt  _ anything  _ other than viscous apathy and dread, the disruption almost enough to startle him. It was new, an explosion of emotion he had not expected at all to swell in his chest. 

Harry forced his hand to his chest, smoothing cold fingers against the soft fabric of his T-shirt. He could feel his heart racing from between his rib cage, could almost sense it on his fingertips like the echoes of a loud scream. 

Harry was alive, and he was there. Harry was  _ feeling  _ and he wasn’t sure what to make of it now. Not after spending so long drowning in absolute nothingness and terror; the abyss a cavern that devoured all his hopes before they even formed.

It was...nice to feel something other than nothing, even if was an unpleasant emotion. Annoyance felt nice tingling along his bones, felt better than the cold clawing at his fingertips...

Emboldened by the monster’s lack of response, Harry spoke again, the words thick on his tongue like molasses. It felt different than the almost thoughtless way that he would speak to his professors, his friends, and anyone that wanted a word from him. It was a conscious effort, a desire to speak that he had forgotten of in the nothingness.

It felt foreign, yet familiar. Harry felt more himself than he probably had since he had begun seeing the monster in his head. Harry clung to the small fragment of emotion, dreading that the faint heat would disappear as quickly as it had come. 

_ All the better to fight down the nightmares, my dear... _

“Isn’t it enough that I can feel you in my head when I dream? That I can see through your eyes when you crush the lives of others? Why can’t you just leave me  _ alone _ ?” Harry demanded, dropping his arm from his chest to point accusingly at the product of all his misery, of the manifestation of every nightmare he had ever had, and would soon have once the hallucination ran its course.

There was absolute silence before Harry felt the nape of his neck prickle, a static-like sound whirring to life in the second it took Harry to realize that the man had begun to laugh. It was a half-second, a blip in an expansive universe, before that static he had assumed he’d been hearing melted into a hiss, the  _ shhh  _ clearer as the seconds elapsed.

And then, the hiss became a choking sound. It was as if the monster was too weak for mirth, was too fragile for the explosion of amusement in that moment. Harry was almost tempted to step closer to capture the sound, to be sure that  _ yes, the monster was in fact laughing and that its laughter grew clearer with each passing breath. _

Harry stamped down the urge as soon as it came, killing the curiosity before it even came to pass. Even when Harry felt as though he was listening to the monster’s laughter from behind an enclosed room, the sound faint and muffled even when it rang in Harry’s mind.

Harry’s stomach dropped when the choking laughter grew louder, when the hitch of air was no longer a weak whisper but a more discernible chuckle. It grew louder and louder, the fuzziness between the vowels now so clear that Harry could hear the precise moments the monster took in air to laugh richly at him. 

Harry had never felt more horrified in his life, his stomach twisting as though real snakes were writhing in his belly, desperate for escape. It was certainly a long time since he had felt this terrified these past few weeks, even with a slight tinge of dread buzzing right beneath his skin.

“...Harry…” The monster said, and Harry took a step back, too spooked to do anything else. He hadn’t anticipated that, had not expected the words to sound as...clear as they had in that moment. It was as if the monster were no longer on the other side of the wall, but standing inside the room with him. As if instead of pressing his ear into dense concrete in the hopes of capturing at least a whisper or a murmur of a conversation, he had had those very secrets uttered into his ear.

“It will  _ never  _ be enough. You can hide behind your headmaster’s coattails, you can hide behind your invisibility cloak when your friends turn the corner, but you can never truly escape yourself. You can never escape  _ me. _ ”

Harry pressed his hands into his ears, no longer wanting to listen. He refused to listen. He couldn’t, and he knew that he shouldn’t listen at all to what the monster had to say. He pressed his hands so hard against his ears that they began to ring, an ache forming now at either side of his head that he dutifully ignored.

_ He isn’t there. He isn’t there. He isn’t-- _

“It is your fault that Sirius is dead, that he fell through the veil, never to be seen again.” The voice purred, and Harry released a sob. The words cutting too deep, too close to the grief he’d been shoving to the back to his mind. He didn’t know when he had turned his eyes away, when he had ripped his gaze from the vibrant red to stare at the ground. Harry’s knees shook with the violent urge to collapse, with the oppressive weight of Vol-- _ the monster’s  _ words in his head.

Harry tried to ignore it, but not even the sound of his blood rushing through his ears could drown out the sound. None of it was barrier enough for the words, his hands were useless to overcome the voice.

“It was because of  _ you  _ that Bellatrix stamped out his life. How foolish of you to fall for my little trap, to let your emotions sway you and lead all those fools straight to me--”

“Shut up!” Harry shouted, but the voice continued on, undeterred.

“Does the truth hurt, Harry? Does the fact that you’re no different than I sicken you?” It said, and Harry’s legs collapsed beneath him, his knees smashing into the unforgiving ground. Harry grunted, a throbbing pain shooting up from his knee caps to the tops of his thighs. He could feel the pain pulse in time with the rapid beating of his heart, could feel the sting of a twig tearing through the thick black of his trousers to break skin. 

Harry could feel the pain like a glass vase shattering in a silent hallway, but he did nothing. He was completely thrown, the disturbance tilting the world on its axis. He did not move from where he had collapsed, not when he could now see Sirius behind his eyes as he fell into the veil, eyes dimmed with death. The image was permanently etched into the back of his eyes, and Harry felt, for the first time in weeks, tears stream down his cheeks.

This grief never felt so oppressive.

“You may not have lifted your wand, your may not have uttered the words. But you were an accessory, you were the catalyst. They say I am a monster, but you, Harry, you are  _ death.” _

Harry felt himself shatter, felt the second his arms dropped from his head to lay uselessly at his sides. He had lost all the strength to keep them up, had lost the will to press them against his ears. Nothing that he did could possibly stop the monster from whispering in his head. 

It was a poison, the words the creature said. The utterances, the disgusting truth of each of the accusations. The creature never lied in all the time it had appeared. 

_ Never any lies, always truths meant to tear me down. _

Harry wished all of it was a lie, that all of what it said was a filthy, stinking  _ lie _ . It was easier to fight it, to resist if all it said were untrue, if all it did was cut through skin and bone with the sharp press of its tongue. But no, the wound only tore at the corners because all of it was true. The break in the skin only bled as copiously as it did because  _ all of it was Harry’s fault. _

Harry was the monster in his own head.

“Admit it. There is no worse fate than meeting you.”

Harry swallowed thickly, throat tight as the image of Sirius melted away to give way to cold, surprised eyes on a face Harry had once called handsome…A face Harry knew he would never see again. 

“Poor  _ poor  _ Cedric. So young, and now he is nothing but fodder for the worms to consume…”

Harry felt his stomach protest, but he contained the screams that wanted to spill out. He wasn’t sure it would be the only thing he’d expel if he didn’t somehow contain himself.

“When will you learn, when will you  _ see _ that I am not a mere figment of your imagination?” Voldemort-- _ because this was Voldemort, not just a monster hidden in the dark-- _ asked, and Harry squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, ignoring the hot tears streaming down his cheeks before finding the courage to look at the black specter again.

Harry’s eyes caught the man’s vivid red, and felt true, visceral panic swell in his chest like an overinflated balloon. It did not stop him from saying what he needed to say, what’d been wanting to say since the hallucination started.  Even when he felt as though something had been lodged in his throat.

“ _ You... _ are not real. You are grief and anger. You are chaos and pain. You are the fear I refuse to face when I close my eyes.” Harry whispered, watching how the red seemed to flash a brighter crimson, as if pleased.

“When it happens to you enough...when these nightmares keep coming...you just learn to pick up on it. You just  _ know  _ when it is real and when it isn’t. And in a way, you are real. About as real as this hollow feeling in the center of my chest.”

Harry drew on, watching how the shadow cocked its head to one side. It was a curious gesture, but Harry paid it no mind. He needed to get this out of his chest or Harry was certain he’d choke.

_ It wasn’t real. Voldemort was not here and was not real. _

“You are just a dark thought. It is why I can only see your eyes, why I can only hear your voice when I am most distressed and hurt.” 

The shadow was silent, and Harry swallowed. He hated this, hated  _ him _ . 

But there was no one he hated more than himself, than his powerlessness and his inability to save all those that he loved.

“I...made you.”

That was the scariest thing of all. The most sickening thing to admit. It was a truth that weighed more heavily on his conscience than all the guilt of avoiding his friends and refusing to face the grief eating him away from the inside. 

Harry had  _ made  _ him. Voldemort was there because Harry wanted him to be. He wasn’t an it or a monster. He was  _ Voldemort  _ as Harry imagined him. He was the form all of Harry’s unacknowledged emotions took, had chosen to take. 

Funny how, in the end, he was always led back to Voldemort in the end.

“And is that not enough, Harry? I may be in your head, I may be the shape your filthy emotions chose to become, but that does not mean that I am not  _ real.. _ .”

Harry remained silent, even as the sun completely fell from the horizon, plunging them both in absolute darkness. The cold an oppressive weight in the dark, its presence as absolute as the red of Voldemort’s irises. 

“...Harry, Harry,  _ Harry _ , you silly boy. Neglect me, and I can assure you that it will be the last thing you will ever do.”

Harry wanted to laugh because of course. That would be what Voldemort would say, in the end.


	26. Titty Sprinkles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Titty Sprinkles + Tomarry  
> Warnings: foul language  
> Rating: T
> 
> Lmao this was probably the funniest thing. I hope you like. It is not serious in the least. There will be typos and such.

“Titty sprinkles,” Harry muttered beneath his breath. His eyes were wide with disbelief, his firm hold on the bags of groceries slackening in surprise. 

Harry could hear the faint sound of cans clattering to the ground, the fresh peaches and apples he had just purchased that afternoon making soft thuds as they tumbled to the wooden floor. He should have been worried for them. He did, after all, spend an hour at the store trying to determine whether he wanted them or not. It also didn’t help that they had been absurdly  _ expensive _ . It wasn’t cheap to buy fruits at this time of year, with the autumn leaves burnt orange and vivid red. 

But Harry could not get himself to focus on the bags he had dropped carelessly to the ground. None of that bloody mattered. It was hardly a blip in his mind in that precise second because, of all things he could have expected for his afternoon, he had not expected for his apartment to be completely trashed. 

He had left for an  _ hour _ . Just one bloody hour. Not a few days, not several weeks. Just one hour. And instead of finding the pristine apartment he had labored over for hours earlier that afternoon, Harry was faced with a bloody war zone.

The floors he had scrubbed until it practically glowed, his hands and knees still aching from scrubbing with a fury he only could possess, were no longer the white they had been before. It was now wet, brown and black stains peppering the white tile as though an army had come in with their shoes caked in mud. It could have been shite for all Harry knew, it could have been bloody anything. It was fucking everywhere, and Harry bit his lip until it bled to stop himself from shouting.

And, as if the floors were not enough, there were papers everywhere, sheets upon sheets scattered around the living room as though someone had thrown a parade in his living room. It looked like confetti, except Harry was certain that the shredded paper was likely the remains of whatever books and magazines lying about than anything else.

The papers were on the floor, on the coffee table squeezed between his couches on the right side of room. There were sheets  _ on  _ the couches themselves, and when Harry turned his attention away from the two sets of couches, he noted that even the rug he had lying by the coat hanger for guests to wipe their feet was littered with papers.

_ What the fuck? _

Harry stepped further into the room and kicked the door shut, frowning when he heard something crunch beneath his sneakers. He turned his gaze down, and of course, there was broken glass all over the floor as well. It was a trail of it, as though someone had grabbed all the fragile things he owned and had dropped them to the ground as they explored the apartment.

Harry followed the trail of broken glass with his eyes. He saw porcelain and a different array of shards on the floor, the brown stains Harry had noted earlier smeared across the walls right where his living room ended and the kitchen began. It looked as though someone had smeared shite all over the walls, and Harry had the distinct impression that this was perhaps intentional. 

Harry did not even want to imagine what the kitchen looked like. He didn’t want to know what the  _ rest  _ of his apartment looked like.

_ Who could have done this?  _ Harry thought, his mind buzzing with frustration as he looked into his devastated apartment. He was certain he had locked the door, he was also certain that he had put the deadbolt on the door to keep any sort of intruders from getting in. Just who could have found the time to raid his apartment in the hour that he had gone to buy some groceries for his date that afternoon?

Harry immediately thought of his ex-boyfriend, Draco, but he quickly dismissed the idea. Draco was many things. A tosser with too many paternal issues to count, but a thief? Hardly. Sure, he was rather petty when he wanted to be and he did often threaten to come into his apartment and trash the place. But the git would never actually  _ do it _ .

Not when he had a rich mummy and daddy that would never accept that their dearest son was gay and a hooligan. He wouldn’t ruin his own family name for some bit of revenge (especially when it was his own bloody fault Harry had broken up with him in the first place). 

So no, Draco had not had a hand in this even if his gut had immediately latched onto the sod’s name. But who? Just who had the nerve to come into his flat and just wreck it? 

He was fairly close to his neighbors, and he doubted that any single one of them would have done something like this. Harry didn’t have many enemies either, even when he had been dating Draco. He was just a university student trying to get by, living on his own euro while he tried to make sense of what to do with his life.

_ Why does this have to happen to me? And today of all days?  _ Harry felt his eyes sting with angry tears, but he held the emotion back. He hated when he cried, especially when he was mad. It never fixed things and it always gave people the wrong impression. He was angry, not upset. He hated that his tear ducts were somehow connected to his anger. 

He inhaled deeply before walking further inside. He knew it was only going to be worse the more he saw, but he needed to know what else the arsehole had ruined. It didn’t look as though someone had stolen anything, but Harry had to be sure. It wasn’t uncommon for thieves to trash the place when they were looking for valuables.

_ But if that had been the case, why was the flat screen still on the wall near the couches? _

Harry clenched his jaw each time glass crunched beneath his feet, when the broken fragments screeched against the tiled floor as he moved. 

There was no way that Harry could get this all cleaned up before his dinner date. Not when he needed to mend nearly half the flat  _ and  _ cook dinner for the both of them.

With a sigh, Harry passed through the open entrance way into the small kitchen. He only had a small kitchen table and a space to cook dinner. It was nothing out of this world, the cabinets a strange-beige color and the oven, dishwasher, and sink nearly ancient. They all worked, but it was definitely not a dream kitchen.

Though, Harry sincerely doubted the kitchen looked any better currently. The plates and cups he had left in the sink to dry were now small pieces on the ground, glinting brightly beneath the off-white light above his head. It was just what Harry had expected. A disaster just as the living room was.

Harry had hoped it would not be the case, that the arsehole would have just left his kitchen alone. It wasn’t an impressive place, it was already sort of ugly. It didn’t need any more abuse than it had suffered through the years. 

That certainly hadn’t stopped the arse, though. It was a disaster, and now there was no way Harry could cook anything. There were no cups or dishes for dinner. There was nowhere for Harry to put the food on to eat.

Whatever vestige of hope Harry had about dinner were thoroughly crushed in that second.

_ This was a bloody nightmare. _

And it only just got worse the further Harry went. 

The dining table and chair set he had purchased when he had first moved in was smeared with more of the brown substance (something Harry noted with relief was not shite, but just mud) and the bookcase he kept tucked at the right by the doorway to his bedroom was notably empty of all books.

That would explain why there was a mess of papers all over his flat, then.

Harry wasn’t sure whether he wanted to scream or cry, frustrated and angry. His eyes burned once more, and he had to bite harshly on his tongue to keep himself from shouting to the tops of his lungs.

_ Ginny was supposed to come over today! _

Harry had labored all afternoon in anticipation for his date, and now,  _ now _ , he would have to cancel. There was no salvaging his apartment. It would take him not just hours, as he had hoped, but  _ days  _ to repair the damage.

This ruined everything. This was supposed to be the first time he would have Ginny over after months of trying to take her out. They had just started seeing each other, and now, it was going to look as though Harry was trying to stand her up. It didn’t matter the reason, it just never looked good to cancel an hour before the date.

She could already be dressed, she could already have done something in anticipation. Even if it was a little get together at his flat, it still  _ sucked _ . 

_ Great. Just the impression I needed to make. _

“What am I going to do…?” Harry groaned before pressing his hands to his face, a scream threatened to spill from out of his throat. It was a Friday. He had an hour. And he needed to call the police to square away this matter to at least get this incident on the books.

He had already canceled on Ginny once already too, he doubted there  _ would  _ be a third time if he did so again. There was no amount of begging from his end that would make this okay. Even if he actually had a good excuse this time (not that he hadn’t the last time, it wasn’t his fault he’d gotten sick with food poisoning!)

_ This is perfect, Harry. Just perfect. You just manage to move on from your dirtbag ex and now your chances are ruined because some arsehole decided to-- _

The sound of three, distinct knocks drew Harry away from his thoughts. 

Harry paused, eyebrows screwing together in confusion. He was not expecting Ginny for another hour. It wasn’t like her to arrive early, and she had yet to shoot him a text that she had left her own flat to come over. He had been in a rush earlier to get the groceries just because of that, needing to grab all that he needed to cook dinner before she arrived.

He had given himself an hour to determine just what he would make and to gather the ingredients he would need. So he knew for a fact that it couldn’t be  _ Ginny  _ standing outside his door with his grocer--

_ The groceries! _

Harry scrambled quickly to the door, just recalling that he had not brought them inside when he had come in.  _ God, I cannot believe this _ , Harry thought before clasping onto the doorknob and yanking the door open with more force than was necessary.

Harry winced when the blasted thing slammed into the wall. He hoped he hadn’t cracked the plaster. The landlord would have his head if she knew that he had  _ again  _ broken a small hole into the wall.

There was the sound of a throat clearing, and Harry was forced away from his thoughts.

Harry’s breath caught, surprise coloring his cheeks when he caught sight of the most handsome man he had ever seen. Easily more handsome than all of the male models on the cover of a Vogue magazine. 

“C-can I help you?” Harry said, noticing that he’d been staring for lord knows how long.

The man smiled at him then, dark eyes glinting brightly underneath the fluorescent light emanating from the hallway. It made him look rather pale, his skin almost waxy looking. But it did not detract from the sharpness of his cheekbones, in Harry’s opinion. Nor did it truly overshadow the smoothness of his skin, or the way his wavy hair was tamed into submission with only one curl pressed against his forehead. 

The man looked like a fallen angel, pale skin contrasting sharply with dark eyes and hair. The shitty light did nothing to mask that sort of beauty, and Harry found himself, once more, struck dumb by his appearance.

“My name is Tom Riddle, I just moved in. I’ve been acquainting myself with everyone that lives on the same floor.”

Harry furrowed his brow for a moment, unsure of what to say to that. 

New neighbor? He didn’t recall the manager telling him about that. Heck, he didn’t recall anyone moving out recently. The set of flats wasn’t numerous and Harry was fairly close to everyone here.

Harry scrambled for something to say when the man then raised his brows at him, the smile stretching wider on his handsome face.

_ Shite. Stop staring, Harry. _

“Um, nice to meet you, then. I didn’t know someone new was moving in. You can call me Harry, just Harry. None of that surname nonsense,” Harry said, unconsciously opening his door further as he tried to fight off a wave of embarrassment. This was a new neighbor, not someone he’d just met at the gay bar. 

_ Get it together. _

“A pleasure to meet you--” Riddle tried to say before abruptly stopping, dark eyes widening in shock.

Harry blinked, confused at Riddle’s sudden reaction. Had he done something?

“Is something wro--”

“What happened to your flat? It looks horrid.”

_ Oh. _

Harry sputtered for a moment, recalling just then the shite state of his flat. 

_ Oh god, my flat. _

_ Ginny. _

Harry felt like his heart might fail. He needed to fix his flat somehow. He needed to do something, like let Ginny know just what happened. He needed to call the  _ police _ .

“I...don’t know,” Harry finally said after a long pause. He shot his gaze down to the groceries he had dropped outside, and groaned aloud. He crouched lowly then, grabbing onto his bags hastily before rising.

It was a miracle none of the contents had fallen out of the bag, but really. Harry had had just about enough with the bad news. He supposed this was the only good thing to come out of the whole fiasco. 

Unbruised fruits.

_ Bloody perfect. _

Harry was just about to ramble about heading back inside, to get started on the cleaning and shoot Ginny that dreaded text, before Riddle pressed a firm hand on his shoulder, stopping him in his tracks.

Harry paused, glancing up at Riddle’s face in surprise.

“Would you like some help? My things have yet to arrive and it certainly looks as though you could use some assistance.”

Harry swallowed, staring intently at Riddle’s face in search any sort of pity and mockery. There was none of those emotions on his face, his dark eyes looked bottomless and his lips were no longer smiling. He looked serious, and it was perhaps in that earnest expression that Harry found himself relaxing underneath Riddle’s sudden offer.

“Thank you. I appreciate it, really. You don’t have to do this,” Harry said instead, shooting Riddle a grateful smile before turning his back to the man and heading back into his hellhole of a flat.

“It’s the least I could do, Harry. After all, we  _ are  _ going to be seeing each quite often,” Riddle said softly, his warm breath fanning against the back of Harry’s left ear. 

That was certainly true. They were neighbors, after all.


	27. Creature

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Creature Tom 
> 
> Rating: T
> 
> Warning: Blood, disturbing elements.
> 
> Not beta-read. There are typos. I wrote this a while ago but forgot to post. Enjoy!

“Harry.”

 

The hairs in the back of Harry’s neck stood on end at the sound of his name. The voice was guttural and high, unlike anything Harry had ever heard in his life. It reminded him of those old horror movies his mum would watch with his dad in front of the telly.

 

Harry froze, unsure of how to proceed. Should he move? He shot his gaze through the dark, looking for the source of the strange sound.

 

But all he met was darkness. A deep black that blended in easily with the branches and the leaves of the trees in the forest.

 

The illumination from the moon overhead was little help in distinguishing anything from one another, but still. It was better than if it had been a new moon.

 

Lord knew what he would have done otherwise.

 

Harry swallowed when he didn’t see anything else, and began to move. His pace was faster now, his movements jerky and desperate as he tried not to fall on the exposed roots beneath his feet when the dirt path beneath him gave way to the wilderness around him.

 

Shit.

 

Harry cursed when he nearly tripped on a particularly stubborn root, his mind distracted by the strange sound he had heard earlier.

 

Harry just couldn’t get it out of his head. It was a cross between beast and human, so high that it almost resembled the sound of glass shattering.

 

It just couldn’t be real. He’d heard wolves and other animals crying out. But it was nothing like the sound he had heard. It had said his bloody name.

 

And then, everything fell silent.

 

The insects buzzing in the trees, the sound of birds rustling above his head, and the small yips of foxes playing a distance away, abruptly disappeared.

 

There was nothing but the sound of his own breathing, and Harry nearly cursed because that was never a good sign.

 

“Harry…”

 

Harry ran faster.

 

The voice had come too close, the memory of a hot breath wafting against the exposed nape of his neck enough to propel him forward.

 

Harry needed to move. He didn’t know what that was. He didn’t know where he was or where Ron even went in the dark.

 

He was utterly lost after a large animal had broken through their campsite and nearly destroyed their tent. He couldn’t afford to idle, not when that same creature had to be what was following him now.

 

“Your fear smells sweet, I can almost taste it at the back of my tongue…”

 

The voice sounded further away, but it was still much closer to Harry that he liked. It was a few feet at his back, the croon unmarred by exhaustion from what Harry could make out. Harry clenched his fists, and he pushed further on when it started to laugh some distance away.

 

The sound was like static in his ears.

 

Harry ran without looking back. The desperation was clawing at the back of his throat like the desperate breaths leaving his protesting lungs, but he could not afford to stop. There was something out there with him. Something that was clearly intelligent and sentient.

 

It had separated Harry from his friends, and had singled him out. Why this was so, Harry did not know. Though, Harry thought acerbically, that hardly mattered. He was lost in the dark and alone. He didn’t need to know the reason, he could think of that later. Right now, he needed to survive.

 

With that thought, Harry steeled himself and pushed himself harder despite the way his legs screamed for rest. He had been pushing himself harder than ever before, his workout routine for football not nearly as rigorous as this.

 

Harry would have chuckled cynically at the thought, recalling how often he and Ron complained about the way their coach worked them to the bone, if not for the fact that something was chasing him through the woods.

 

He supposed that running for one’s life was definitely a way to put things into perspective.

 

“Harry…”

 

Harry yelped when he felt something sharp swipe across the back of his neck, the sting enough to make him stumble and fall into the ground roughly. He pushed his hands out to break his fall, gritting his teeth when the pebbles and tree roots scratched at his palms and dug painfully into his knees.

 

Harry closed his eyes for a moment to compose himself, staring into the ground below before turning his head up and stiffening.

 

There were two strangely shaped legs in front of his face. They were pale, almost translucent beneath the full moon over the darkened sky.

 

Harry was frozen stiff with fear, his bespectacled face refusing to raise higher. He didn’t want to see the creature that had come into the camp and ruined an otherwise pleasant afternoon. He didn’t want to know what this was because this was no bear or wolf. This was already unlike anything Harry had ever seen before.

 

“Look at me, human.”

 

It hissed, and Harry’s arms broke into goosebumps at the sound. He didn’t know what to think, didn’t know what to do. His arms began to shake, and his knees trembled when he felt a breath fan against the back of his neck, hot and wet as a mouth touched along his ear.

 

“Look at me.” Harry snapped his head up, and the scream threatening to escape him at the sight. The face he saw robbed him entirely of his capacity to speak.

 

The monster was entirely naked and on four legs. It looked strangely humanoid, but the way its arms and legs bent was unlike any person was capable of. The elbows were bent backwards and its hind legs were twisted in a fashion that looked more dog-like than anything else.

 

But its face.

 

Harry could not stop staring. Despite the monstrous look of its body, the way its fingers looked nothing like any hands Harry had ever seen with its knobby joints and pitch black claws, its face was very much human.

 

It looked beautiful, like the face of a boy Harry’s own age with high cheekbones, immaculate skin, and soft-looking black hair. It fell over the creature’s forehead in waves, the curls falling over its slim neck.

 

Its head did not fit on the body. It looked as if someone had removed the head of a perfectly normal boy and attached it to that of monster. Its shoulders and arms were as thick Harry’s thighs, and Harry could see the way the muscles jumped each time it moved.

 

Harry swallowed.

 

He was in trouble. This was obscene.

 

“Yesss, much better…”

 

It purred, and Harry watched the way the pupil in its eyes slitted into thin lines and the black melted away into a bright, crimson. Its mouth parted, and Harry gasped when instead of blunt teeth, the beautiful lips hid jagged teeth that looked sharper than any knife his mum had in the kitchen.

 

And then it leaned in.

 

Harry could not contain his whimper of fear when its hot breath fanned across his face, and he smelled iron and something rancid meat in his nostrils. The stench was enough to twist Harry’s stomach into knots, the hotdog he had eaten over the campfire protesting in his stomach.

 

“Don’t fret, precious boy...you’ll come to crave the taste. I did not wait centuries to lose you again…”

 

It purred, and Harry felt himself sink into the red of the creature’s eyes. The world around him disappeared, his vision consumed by the way the pupils seemed to dilate and swallow him whole. The gaze arrested his own, and Harry could not resist when that mouth pressed against his cheek, and trailed down to his neck.

 

Harry wanted to squirm, but all he could see was red. The creature’s eyes had left, but he was drowning in red. All he could see and all he could smell was the coppery stench of red.

 

And then he was screaming, unimaginable pain consuming him as the red began to fade into thick, oppressive black. His mind was silent, his thoughts robbed from him by the pain that traveled from a fixed point in his neck and traveled up, down, and around him.

 

The pain was everything.

 

And then the creature purred, the sound oddly close to his throat as it melted into the agony cutting into Harry’s brain. He could think of nothing else, the agony sweeping him away easily before he heard a soft whisper in his ear.

 

“Mine.”


	28. Dalliance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: What next + tomarry
> 
> Warning: Sexual themes, unresolved sexual tension
> 
> Rating: M
> 
> Another drabble I forgot to post. Excuse the typos.

"What next?" Said an amused voice.

 

A voice, that Harry realized with mounting horror, sounded an awful like...

 

"You didn't think I wouldn't notice?" A voice purred, and Harry flinched when a warm hand planted itself on his shoulder, the heat scalding as it bled through the thin fabric of his invisibility cloak. "That I wouldn't find you sneaking around past curfew? How careless of you."

 

The hand squeezed Harry tightly, the fingers digging so harshly into his shoulder that he swore he'd have bruises by the end of this mess.

 

If he made it out alive with his dignity intact, that is.

 

"I-I can explain..." Harry tried, but was abruptly cut off when Riddle suddenly jerked him around and forced him against the wall, the harsh concrete biting into his shoulder blades and the back of his head clipping the wall at his back. Harry felt his vision spin, his mouth parting to relief a pained curse.

 

"Sneaking into the Prefects bathroom...I wonder just _what_ it was that you were doing there."

 

Harry wanted the ground to swallow him up right then and there. He felt his cheeks warm, and his mouth part into a shocked "o", the heavy implication in the teen's voice doing little for his resolve. Harry could hardly believe his ears, unable to speak at all because Riddle couldn't possibly know what he'd been up to.

 

He just _couldn't._ But convincing himself of this fact was growing more difficult the longer Harry stood in the empty hallway with the Headboy looming over him like some shadow.

 

"I don't know what you're talking about," Harry said, casting his gaze up despite the cloak draped over his head. It was a miracle it had somehow not fallen off from Riddle's rough manhandling, but he certainly wasn't about to complain.

 

Anything was better than looking Riddle in the face. Not with how flushed his cheeks were.

 

"Oh? I don't?" Riddle hummed, the amusement in his voice grating on Harry's nerves.

 

Riddle sounded smug. Too smug. Like he knew something Harry didn't, and that _never_ boded well. Not when it came to the literal prince of Slytherin.

 

And then Riddle pressed close, caging Harry into the wall before abruptly ripping the cloak from Harry's head. Harry had no time to react.

 

"Much better."

 

Harry glared at Riddle, noticing the mischievous twist to the teen's lips. He looked like the cat that ate the cream. And Harry felt something anxious twist in his gut when Riddle's gaze lowered and slowly raked his gaze up to Harry's face.

 

_It looked like Riddle was...No, the teen couldn't possibly_ , Harry denied furiously in his head.

 

In spite of this, Harry flushed a bright crimson. He simply could not control his reaction. Even if the thought that Riddle was checking him out was absurd. Riddle was admittedly the most attractive boy in all of Hogwarts. And the fact that he was pressed too closely to him now, and it seemed like Riddle was, circ help him, flirting with him. It just could not be helped. Not that he would admit to any of this, he'd sooner chew glass than admit something like that.

 

Riddle already had an ego the size of England. Harry knew for a fact that any sort of compliment flung in the teen's direction would just be a mistake.

 

Just as much a mistake as it was to be standing in the middle of the hallway with the teen at 2 a.m.

 

"Just give me detention and be done with it." Harry growled, watching the way Riddle's smile seemed to widen further and his eyes glitter with an emotion Harry could not quite name.

 

"Detention? I could think of something much better than scrubbing cauldrons," Riddle purred.

 

Harry felt his heart stutter.

 

Had he heard correctly?

 

Harry felt his cheeks grow hot, the skin burning with a heat he never would have guessed that it could.

 

This was absurd. Absolutely mad.

 

Riddle could not possibly...?

 

"W-what are you saying?" Harry asked, freezing when Riddle leaned in until their lips were milimeters apart. The warmth of Riddle's breath fanned against his lips, and Harry swore that if he breathed too hard, their lips might even brush.

 

This could not be happening.

 

"I know why it is that you leave your dorm, Harry..." Riddle said, his warmth breath tickling the sensitive skin of Harry's lip.

 

Harry felt his world spin for a moment, unable to move despite all freedom to do so. Riddle was not restraining him. There was no wand pressed against his rib cage. He was perfectly capable of leaving, but Riddle's presence sucked out any thought of escape. Especially when his eyes were trained to his own, the murky pools seeming to trap his own, verdant ones.

 

"I have _seen_ you, watched you sink into clear waters with lit sconces reflected along your skin..." Riddle's voice sounded hoarse to Harry's ears, the drop from the teen's silky baritone to the husky sound that Harry now caught, intoxicating. Harry felt his heart race and his stomach clench, his tongue peeking out to lick his own, suddenly dry lips.

 

When had it gotten hot in the hallway? Harry could not recall.

 

"I have _heard_ you, your soft moans echoing through the deathly silent room. Your pink mouth opening to release such delicious cries..." Harry's breath hitched, unable to stop the sound when Riddle's voice dropped lower, and a hand suddenly pressed against the wall just left of his head.

 

"W-when did you--" Harry tried to ask, but stopped when Riddle's index finger pressed against his lips.

 

The touch seared Harry straight to the bone, the sensation a heady shock to his senses.

 

"Shhh, I am not finished. _Listen._ " Harry could only nod his head, drawn in by the hypontic swirl of black in Riddle's eyes, and the way the teen's lips moved as he spoke. It was easily the most seductive thing Harry had ever seen. And he had no bloody idea what to do.

 

Harry couldn't have spoken if he tried.

 

"And each time, I heard you say my name."

 

Harry swallowed, trembling when Riddle's finger began to caress the sensitive flesh of his bottom lip as he spoke.

 

"Such a curious thing to come out of your lips."

 

Riddle knew.

 

Harry didn't know what to think. He was overwhelmed and shocked all at once, the sensation of the teen's finger on his lips distracting as he tried to string together a response.

 

Not that anything Harry could say could justify this. He had in fact been leaving his dorm to...take care of business.

 

Still, Harry parted his lips to say something, but instead of the halfhearted denial he planned to say, Harry felt a moan leave his lips when Riddle pressed his knee between his parted thighs. The friction of the teen's leg and Harry's tight trousers making his cock stiffen.

 

Harry hardly registered when Riddle twined his fingers into his wild locks.

 

"So what will it be, Harry?" Riddle asked, the soft sound too alluring and decadent to be real.

 

Harry never felt more conflicted in his life.


	29. Quidditch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Uncontrollable broomstick + Tomarry
> 
> Warning: Foul Language
> 
> Rating: T
> 
> Not beta-read. Not proof-read. There will be typos. This was something lighthearted I wrote up a while back.

"T-there's something wrong with my broom," Harry said, his eyebrows furrowed with both confusion and exasperation when the stupid thing would not hold still. Of course, movement in magical objects was typical. It was something that Harry had come to expect throughout his years in Hogwarts.

 

But _this_ sort of movemant was just beyond absurd. The wood refused to remain still within his hands, jumping and writhing as if the broom were in pain. That certainly could not be right.

 

"Harry, I understand your concern but we have a _game_. We cannot afford to call this all out," the captain pressed, his name escaping Harry's recollection in that moment. _Was it Longbottom? Finnigan?_ " Harry could not be sure. Best that he did not answer the boy then, Merlin knows what that sort of response might garner him. He was already disliked in his own House, he didn't need to give his housemates another reason to hate him.

 

Sodding hat should have put him in Gryffindor, it would have been a vastly different story.

 

With that thought, Harry nodded his hand and swung his legs over the broom. His movements were careful, his fingers gripping so tightly around the wood that it looked like he might snap it with his bare hands. It was better to be overly careful than sorry later, Harry had had more than enough experiences in the past to know that mishandling a broom could lead to far too many consequences.

 

"Hurry up, Potter. We don't have all day!" The captain shouted again, and Harry rolled his eyes before rising from the ground. The air was cold, the wind nipping at his bare cheeks as he rose and quickly shot out from where he'd been and out to the open field where many of the players were already waiting for him.

 

The sky was a bright blue, the sun shining brightly above their heads. It was the most warmth Harry had felt since rushing outside with his broom in hand, and Harry grinned. With weather like this, his house was assured a win. Hopefully the win would be enough of a distraction to keep their filthy comments to themselves about his mother. He'd already punched that bloody Malfoy bloke in the mouth already, and the school year had not even gone full swing.

 

And then, almost as if sensing Harry's thoughts, the broom began to vibrate beneath his fingers, the only warning Harry had before it shot out past the throng of people. Harry shouted, his mouth wild as he tried to force the broom to listen to him.

 

_Come on, come on, stop it,_ Harry thought desperately as the broom swerved, his head missing the Gryffindor stands by a hair.

 

_Shite._

 

And then the broom dropped, and Harry felt his glasses press harder against his face, the world around him a kaleidoscope of color as he zoomed back into the Gryffindor stands, twirling and jerking as if he were riding a wild bull.

 

Harry wondered what he had done in his past life to deserve something like this. Sure, he was mouthy and often picked fights with the wrong people, but he certainly didn't deserve to die from a broom accident. None of his cheek with the older Slytherins warranted this sort of treatment.

 

The broom dipped lower, the wood parallel to the side right at his side as it shot him head first to the ground. Harry's teeth clenched, and his eyes widened in fear. He tried to control the broom, to get it to stop, but it refused. He tried to release the broom, to at least take a hold of his wand as he death spiraled down, but the broom, as if sensing it, would jerk and bounce so suddenly that Harry would have to reclaim his hold on it.

 

It was infuriating and absolutely terrifying all at once.

 

The ground was growing closer and closer, and Harry could do nothing but watch as he fell. He could hear the shouts of the people on the stands to his left, could he the screaming of his housemates to his right, but none of that mattered in that second.

 

Harry closed his eyes, and then, Harry felt something clasp tightly around his waist before his grip on the broom was wrenched abruptly from the broom. Harry gasped, his arms flailing outward, preparing to fall to his death now that he no longer held a dealthy grip on the broom.

 

Harry had expected to continue falling, to feel the familiar tug of adrenaline and fear that twisted at his stomach when he'd been pulled away from the broom. But there was no falling, no strange flipping low on his belly.

 

Harry's back felt warm, the thing cradling his arm pulsing with a heat he had not expected.

 

Harry opened his eyes, and he was still high in the air.

 

Harry could hardly believe it. It didn't make any sense that he could be like this now. That he wasn't plunging to his death. Harry wanted to laugh and cry at the same time, overjoyed and confused at the strange turn of events.

 

_How am I still--_

 

"Are you alright, Harry?" Harry heard a smooth, low voice say just behind his head. Harry stiffened, realizing in that instant that the object wrapped tightly around his waist was an _arm_ , and that the warmth seeping into his back was that of a body.

 

A firm, and lean chest that Harry had not expected at all.

 

Harry felt his mouth open and close, unsure of what to say. He didn't recognize the voice. At all. But it seemed to Harry, in that moment, that the person practically cradling him into his body knew perfectly well who Harry was.

 

"That was quite dangerous, you know. Quite unbecoming of a member of the Slytherin house," the voice continued, and Harry shuddered despite himself, the voice rich and almost mesmerizing.

 

Harry shook his head, casting aside some of his shock for the moment, disturbed by how affected he was by the boy holding onto him.

 

"How do you know my name? How are we still in the _air_?" Harry shot out, and the boy chuckled behind his head before their bodies descended. Harry's breath caught at the speed, his arms latching onto the arm on his waist for purchase.

 

The boy did not answer.

 

It was not until Harry's feet were on the ground that Harry finally felt his body come to life, twirling around and pulling away as quickly as he could from the boy holding him to tightly around his waist.

 

Harry tried not to gape. The boy that had saved him was...unreal. Harry was sure he had never seen him before, and Harry made it his business to at least know all the persons in his house. How could he have missed someone that looked like they came out of a Witches Weekly magazine?

 

The boy's hair was immaculate, the rich black of his hair a sharp contrast to boy's pale skin. And then his eyes, Harry didn't have the words. They reminded him of the darkness in a lake, its depth unknown.

 

"My name is Tom Riddle...it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance."


	30. Magazine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Something forgotten + Tomarry
> 
> Warning: Foul language, suggestive themes
> 
> Rating: T
> 
> This was so fun to write. I remember laughing and chuckling. I hope you all enjoy it as well. There are typos and errors, of course. This was not edited at all.

"Are you sure you're not just making the whole thing up?" Ron garbled out, stuffing a piece of chicken into his mouth at the same time Harry sat down beside him.

 

Harry didn't mind it on most days, but he was particularly irked that afternoon. He'd been humiliated in front of Snape _again_ , and if matters could not get any worse, he'd been assigned to assist Professor Riddle with his duties. What those duties even entailed, Harry wasn't sure and he didn't really want to find out. The man was a twat on most days to him, so being put in with him on an evening he could be spending time with his friends, well, that was just horrid.

 

And then there was the niggling fact that something was bloody missing from his trunk. Harry could not quite pin down what it was, but he could tell that there was just something off about it.

 

"Yes, I'm bloody sure. There's something missing in my trunk. I don't quite remember what it is, but I _know_ there's something weird." Harry sighed, unable to focus on the plate of food in front of him as he tried to pin down just what it could be.

 

Could it be a notebook? Could it be a pair of underwear?

 

Harry just couldn't pin the thought down.

 

"Harry...you have to be in detention soon. It's best you head on over before things get worse." Hermione stated, jerking Harry immediately from his thoughts. He couldn't help his sneer, the memory of the shite afternoon flashing over his mind once more as he regretfully nodded his head at them before heading down to the dungeons.

 

Harry might as well get this over with.

 

The walk was a quick one despite his hesitation. Harry knew that stalling things would not make the whole thing any better, but still, he still wished that something strange would happen to derail him or some professor would sweep him away from an unpleasant evening with the man.

 

Harry just _hated_ Riddle, with his pretty face, soft hair, and dark eyes. The man was someone straight out of a witches magazine. And it irked him completely that everyone else was practically eating at the palm of his hand.

 

Everyone except for Harry, of course.

 

But that was mostly because the man had personally made it his mission to be a complete wanker since he took up the Defense Against the Dark Arts position. He was rude to Harry every chance he got--practically sneered at him whenever he tried to answer a question or did well during his exercises.

 

Harry did not know what he could have done to the man, but it was almost worse than his interactions with the bat in Potions.

 

Harry was taken from his thoughts when he stopped in front of the door, a frustrated sigh leaving his lips when he forced the door open and Riddle was sitting at his desk. The man's quill was moving, but the man was not obviously writing, he seemed engrossed in a book that Harry could not quite make out from where he stood.

 

"Quit your dawdling, you have much to do." Riddle interrupted, his sharp gaze turning away from the book to regard Harry with a mischievous twist to his lips. Harry felt suddenly very nervous. He could not recall ever seeing that sort of expression on the man's face before.

 

But he didn't let the nervous twisting in his gut stop him. Harry stepped further into the room, letting the door slam hard behind him, as he closed the space between himself and the desk.

 

It felt like an eternity before he stopped in front of the dark wood, but it was probably only seconds.

 

"...what will I be doing then?" Harry did not care that he'd failed to call him sir, both perturbed and curious when the corner of the man's lip raised up into a blatant smile. It made the mischief in his eyes more apparent and Harry felt his hands begin to sweat nervously.

 

_This is really weird...._

 

"You see, I had originally intended to have you filing papers. But there's...been a change of plans. I've discovered something quite _interesting_ about you." Riddle intoned, rising slowly from the desk and turning around it until he was standing right beside Harry, his height easily towering above Harry's own average stature.

 

"What are you--" Harry swiveled around to look at him, but stopped, the man's hand had shot out and clasped him around the shoulder, his grip so tight that Harry could not stop himself from flinching.

 

"Now why you would leave something like that lying about, I am not sure." Riddle continued as if Harry had not tried to interrupt him, and Harry swallowed nervously when the man forcibly turned him around, the shock of the entire situation keeping him still.

 

And then, like a shot of adrenaline, Harry recalled what it was that he had forgotten. Horror and shock twisted his expression, his mouth gaping and his eyes going so wide it looked like they were about to pop from Harry's skull.

 

" _Gay_ pornography. My, my you're just full of surprises, Harry."

 

Harry wanted to die of embarrassment.


	31. Murphy's Law

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Borrowing clothes + Tomarry  
> Warnings: Suggestive themes  
> Rating: T
> 
> This is the closest to fluff I can get. I hope you like. This wasn't beta read so there will be typos. This is an AU.

It hadn’t been Harry’s intention. It was only supposed to be a one time thing. At least, that was what he told himself each and every time he burrowed into Tom’s bed to breathe in more of his scent.

Harry was only supposed to indulge in this once and leave things at that. He wasn’t supposed to sneak off with the more worn clothes items Tom owned or the pencil’s he’d often see pressed against the boy’s lips.

But the first time Harry had slipped into Tom’s bedroom, he should have known that it wouldn’t be a one time thing. That getting his fix of the boy would result in absolute chaos from that point forward.

It was how he found himself once again in Tom’s bedroom, Tom’s green jumper pressed against his face as he inhaled more of that rich scent. Harry had never been able to identify what it was, whether it was Tom’s soap or if it was a cologne he tucked away somewhere in his closet of a room. 

It smelled like the forest after the morning dew settled in the grass. After the passing of a storm that ravaged the trees, the sky’s darkened clouds shrouding the morning light with its gloom. Harry did not know how Tom managed to capture that smell, but Harry was certainly not complaining.

It was addicting and Harry could not help himself. He burrowed his face deeper into the wool sweater, ignoring the way it scratched at his face to breathe in more of Tom.

He closed his eyes to drink it in, relishing in the note of sweat that lingered on it. It was strangely human that Tom, a boy as untouchable and polite as he was could actually sweat. The boy was never ruffled. He was always impeccably dressed. His hair tamed and brushed to one side with only one riotous curl escaping the restrictive hold on his head.

Harry’s stomach curled pleasantly, suddenly overcome with need.

It should have been his first clue that his crush was a bit...more than a crush. That it was borderline creepy that he would sneak into the boy’s dorm to smell him and steal clothes Harry was certain Tom would not notice missing.

“Planning to take my favorite jumper as well?”

Harry jolted so badly he nearly toppled from the bed. 

_ No _ .

Tom was not supposed to be back until at least another hour. The boy was a creature of habit. He never strayed from schedule, always following it like a priest followed the word of God. 

Harry felt his cheeks heat up with embarrassment. He couldn’t find the will to look away from the jumper in his grip to glance at the boy that had caught him red handed. The shame burning in his stomach was too much, the knowledge that Tom had finally caught him in the act unbearable. 

_ I fucked up. Oh god, I  _ fucked  _ up. _

A thick silence settled around them. Harry was barely breathing, heart beating rapidly in his chest as he tried to think of a solution to this mess. But there was no explanation for why a boy Tom hardly knew was laying on Tom’s bed with Tom’s jumper pressed to his face. 

Tom’s  _ favorite  _ jumper no less. 

Harry opened his mouth, but only a strangled sound managed to escape his quivering lips. He was too bloody nervous. He hadn’t even grown the bollocks to look at Tom and he was standing a  _ meter  _ behind him.

Harry should at least look at him. It was the least he could do considering he’d been caught with little explanation for his conduct. 

But Harry did not dare even when he  _ knew  _ it would only make things more awkward than they already were.

“You could have simply asked for it, you know. I would not have denied a request from you.”

Harry’s heart nearly stopped. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

It was impossible. It was absurd and unreal that Tom would even look in his direction. 

Tom didn’t even know him!

“W-what?” Harry asked, finally tearing his gaze away from the jumper and shifting his position on the bed to look in Tom’s direction.

The door was directly behind Tom, the light from the open doorway submerging Tom’s face in shadow. Harry squinted to make out the boy’s expression, to see more than the white button down shirt the boy was wearing and the tight slacks smoothed over Tom’s supple thighs.

But there was nothing but shadow.

And yet, Harry couldn’t tear his eyes away. His mouth felt suddenly too dry, his throat tighter than the knot deep in the pit of his stomach.

“I had hoped it wouldn’t come to this. Honestly, Harry…” Tom said, clearly exasperated before closing the door behind his back.

The lock clicked shut and Harry shot the door a startled glance. It echoed in the silent room and Harry tried his best not to panic at being locked in with his crush.

“To think, that I would have to corner you in my  _ bedroom  _ of all places. Is my presence that intimidating, Harry? Do I make you so nervous that even the sound of my voice makes you run with your tail tucked between your legs?”

Harry stiffened, mouth parting open in shock when Tom’s face was suddenly too close. 

Before, there was no telling just what expression Tom wore. There was no telling if the boy was upset or amused at having caught him in the boy’s dorm. All Harry had was the almost unassuming tone in the boy’s voice.

But now, Harry knew for certain that Tom was not upset at all. 

Tom was  _ smiling _ , the dimple at the corner of his mouth made more pronounced by the genuine amusement in the boy’s eyes.

Harry had never seen that look in Tom’s face before. Not in all the time he’d been stalking Tom, skirting around him to avoid being caught in the act. 

If Harry had known that Tom was capable of such an expression, he would have turned tail and run. His heart was beating too rapidly in his chest, and there was no telling what might happen from this point forward.

It was...frightening.

“...No.” Harry said, finally finding the courage to speak in that moment when Tom finally stopped in front of the bed. 

Tom was standing directly in front of him. Centimeters away from Harry’s flushed face. He was so close that if Harry wanted, he could actually touch the boy he’d crushed on all year. 

Harry’s vision swam. 

“No? Are you certain? You look as though you might faint.” Tom teased, and Harry blinked in surprise when Tom was suddenly level with his face. Their faces so close that Harry could make out grey in the deep onyx of the boy’s eyes. 

“...I don’t get it.” Harry muttered, eyes caught helplessly in Tom’s searching gaze. 

This was the closest Harry had ever been to Tom. He’d never permitted himself to be even in the same room, and now, they were sharing the same air. With each breath Harry took, he was taking in the warm breaths of Tom’s into his mouth.

Tom wasn’t supposed to know about his crush. He wasn’t supposed to know  _ him  _ at all. They ran in different circles. They were in different years. For everyone else, they were perfect strangers.

But it seemed that Tom had known all along that Harry had been taking his things, if the slight smile of the boy’s lips was anything to go by. If this whole affair was any indication that Tom had only been biding his time. Tom even  _ knew  _ his bloody name!

Harry was at a loss for words. Tom had rendered him entirely speechless.

“How do you think you got into my room so easily? It certainly wasn’t by accident.”

Harry tightened his grip on the jumper when Tom leaned in closer still, his dark eyes flashing with an emotion Harry did not understand. 

_ Had Tom been leading me on all along?  _

“It’s endearing. That you admire me to the point that you’d chance getting caught time and time again. I was curious of what you’d do if given the chance to come into my dorm.”

Harry scooted back when Tom crept closer as he spoke. None of this was making any sense, and Harry was certain he was losing complete control of the entire situation. The longer Tom spoke the more confusing everything became. 

With each centimeter bridged by Tom’s face, the more aware Harry became. Somehow, Tom had seen through him. Tom had  _ known  _ about his sneaking into his dorm. There was no other explanation. 

Those black eyes boring into Harry’s wide, green eyes had somehow speared through him to unveil all the secrets he’d buried deeply in his chest, and Harry had had  _ no  _ idea. It was insane.

“Y-you...set me up?” Harry asked, nearly squeaking at the end when his back met the wall of the dorm. He hadn’t noticed Tom had been backing him into it, but now, he was more than aware that Tom had been working him like a predator did its prey.

“Yes. I was wondering when you’d notice.”

Harry’s jaw dropped at the blithe way Tom said it, as if he were merely discussing the weather and not that he’d set up a trap Harry had unwittingly fallen for.

“That’s just... _ why? _ ” Harry wanted to know.

He  _ needed  _ to know.

“Because I want you.”

Harry gaped, fingers digging into the wool like a lifeline when Tom reached out to smooth his fingers against Harry’s cheeks. They were warm to the touch. The boy’s nails like the rays of the morning sun that often bled from his bedroom window.

Harry’s couldn’t help the helpless sound that left his lips at just how nice it felt. 

“And what I want, I  _ take _ .”  Tom murmured, eyes flashing brightly with hunger before swooping down to lay a soft kiss against Harry’s parted lips.

Harry gasped and before he knew it, his fingers had abandoned Tom’s jumper in favor of the boy’s shoulder. He dragged the boy closer, suddenly hungry for more of the boy’s lips. 

He tasted like dark chocolate. Both sweet and bitter on Harry’s lips as he tried to coax the boy to give him more than the chaste kiss he’d given. 

Harry wanted more.  _ Needed  _ more than Tom had offered him.

But Tom only laughed into his lips before smoothing them over Harry’s quivering cheeks to kiss his ear.

Harry’s cheeks felt as though they might melt from the intensity of his arousal. His want was a writhing monster in the pit of his stomach. 

This was his  _ crush  _ kissing him. This was the boy he’d never thought he could have, now within arm’s length. It was everything Harry could have ever dreamed and it made his insides twist.

“Please,” Harry moaned, but Tom did not kiss him again. His face lingered near his ear, the soft puff of his breaths tickling a sensitive point in Harry’s neck that he hadn’t known he had. 

“ _ Patience _ , Harry. We have this room entirely to ourselves.”


	32. Nostalgia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: N/A  
> Warnings: Depression, minor character death. Post Epilogue AU.  
> Rating: T  
> Ship: Tomarry
> 
> Leave a comment or kudos if you liked.

Harry didn’t know how long he watched him.

It could have been minutes, could have been days, since he’d sat down on the hospital chair to watch Tom sleep, unable to do much else than sit as the shadow chased after fading sunlight.

Harry didn’t feel time pass, never when he watched Tom’s chest rise and fall steadily; the man’s body drowned in the endless white sheets billowing around him. They swallowed him, consumed him. They almost resembled angel wings with the way the sheets fanned around him, as odd as it was.

It was...beautiful.

Tom looked peaceful like this. And Harry couldn’t help but feel that way too, lulled by the calm aura radiating from Tom’s slumbering form. Observing, as he often did, how Tom slept his immortality away.

It gave Harry a glimpse of the man he had never seen before. A fragility, a weakness, that Harry never thought Tom was capable of expressing. Convinced, after watching memory after memory of the boy’s unruffled smile, that Tom had been incapable of softness.

Tom had  _always_  been strong. Never a wrinkle on his mask, never a showing of weakness, even as an eleven-year old boy. He had been cold, curious and cherubic in the ways children often were, but he was  _never_  soft. That had been lost to him long before Dumbledore had met him.

So it was strange to see him this way because  _how_  did someone so strong, a man that spat at the mere showing of weakness, look so relaxed in slumber? There was no explanation for it. There were no “whys” and “hows”. It simply  _was_.

Harry didn’t question it. He’d long since accepted these rare moments for what they were. It was an enigma, a mystery, with no discernible answer, and he had long since given up trying to decipher it.

Even monsters could sleep. Even monsters were capable of humanity. If this wasn’t a clear indication of this fact, Harry didn’t know what was.

He knew this now.  _Understood_  that Tom Riddle too could show a hint of humanity, even if only in sleep. Caught between life and death, unable to escape the artificial realm of dreams his wardens had forced him into.

It was inhumane that this was how they dealt with this fragment of the Dark Lord. That, rather than give this man a sense of individuality, even if he was the last living piece of a monster; a boogeyman that refused to die; they silenced his mind. Losing one’s sense of self was horrid, and Harry wasn’t sure even Voldemort deserved this.

This was Tom’s  _awareness_. This was Tom’s  _mind_. Nothing was more precious than that. How were they to make him feel remorse, teach him that what he’d done was  _wrong_  if he wasn’t even awake to experience it?

Harry had nearly lost himself once before, the strength of Voldemort’s will overwhelming his own back in the Ministry. It was decades ago, but still, he remembered his fear. The weight of Voldemort’s mind crushing his would never be forgotten, even after years after the fact. There was nothing more frightening than losing one’s sense of self, and Tom had lost his.

At least, with Tom awake and aware, they could teach him something. They could show him how he’d been  _wrong_. There was no teaching an empty man remorse.

 _But then again_...Harry thought, lips pursed into a stubborn line.  _The original healers never cared to show him remorse in the first place._

They’d decided almost immediately that there was no other option but this. That in order to contain this threat, this was necessary. A means of protecting themselves from a danger they saw no reason to unleash upon the world.

 _Or so they said_ , but Harry knew the true reason. Even if he hadn’t wanted to know, to feel even a smidge of compassion for a piece of the Dark Lord.

The Ministry didn’t want to retribution for the lives lost in the war. No, they wanted to know how Riddle was  _alive_. They wanted to  _study_  him, to pick apart his secrets without risking their lives, without awakening a monster they could not contain. No one was foolish enough to consider waking him nor willing to sacrifice this opportunity for research either.

It was opportunistic. It was barbaric. It went contrary to everything Harry believed in, but he had been complicit in all this. Even if he hadn’t known, at first. Even if he’d believed Voldemort had deserved all of it when he’d been drowning in his own grief years after learning of this.

And then, he found out about the experiments. If he had been hesitant before, then now he was outright revolted. This went beyond even his own vindictive feelings, surpassed any sort of animosity he felt for Tom. It was  _appalling_  what they did, what the healers were permitted to do in the name of immortality. They were no better than Tom.

Yet, Harry did  _nothing_  to change this fact despite all of his reservations, his misgivings of how Tom was treated. Eternal sleep, he'd justified to himself to an extent, but the experiments? The fact that the healers were poking into Tom’s mind without the man being aware? Harry could not stomach it.

Harry knew that Voldemort, should he have been presented with a similar situation, would have done the same. This fact didn’t stop him from feeling sick to his stomach, however.

The healers wanted to understand the lengths Voldemort had gone to ensure his survival, and so, Tom Riddle would asleep, dream and flit about his imagination until they, one day, cracked the code.

All with Harry sitting idly by. Allowing it to go on, permitting this unethical behavior; if only to uncover, along with the secret to immortality, a way to undo it as well.

All they had was time. An untenable thing that felt more and more ominous with each passing day.

Because Tom was not aging, and neither was Harry.

Harry would live so long as Tom lived—or was it the other way around? Harry had long since given up explaining this to himself. All he knew was that he was bound, even now, to the monster. It didn’t matter that he’d torn what little remained of Voldemort’s tattered soul from his chest at the clearing.

No, none of that mattered.

They were still intertwined. By prophecy or by blood, Harry did not know. Connected in ways that no healer could explain.

Nothing could erase this fact. Not the efforts he’d made to exorcise Voldemort’s soul from his body nor the lengths he’d taken to prove to the world that he was nothing like Voldemort.

Harry could not die, he could not  _age_ ; just as Tom Riddle could not.

When he'd discovered this fact, the knowledge had driven him mad with fury. It’d twisted his insides, made fear like he’d never experienced before consume him. He'd believed it was  _over_ , thought himself free of Voldemort’s control,  _of his putrid soul._

Sure, one of his horcruxes had remained alive, asleep in St. Mungo’s for the unforeseeable future, but to learn that they were still tied by something no one had the means of explaining? Harry had gone ballistic. He’d shouted his lungs out, demanded that the healers, that  _someone_ , undid this magic that refused to let him die.

And for a time, Harry had hoped that one day they would succeed. Their assurances had seemed earnest enough.

But now, Harry knew just how stupid a hope it was. The days had turned to years, and the years had turned to decades, and still, there was no solution to this bizarre problem.

His friends had faded into dust. His wife and children had all passed on. All of them had gone without him. He still had his great grandchildren, which he had visited for a time when he’d been crippled with loneliness. But those visits had grown more sparse as the days continued to trickled by. He was unable to stomach features that looked both too much and too little like Ginny’s.

_Like small hands that reached for a fluttering bird, but only ever brushed against its feathered tail._

It was in that state of grief that Harry had decided to visit Tom Riddle for the first time. Stricken with a sudden desire to see the monster that had damned him to this fate.

It’d been two decades since he’d seen the man, and surely enough, when he went, Harry realized just how much things had changed. Voldemort’s name had become a mere whisper of a memory in the minds of the new healers milling about the hospital. After all, the person laying on that bed was not the Dark Lord. It was only a slumbering man. A person that would never wake. Not in their lifetime, at least.

Harry hadn’t known why he'd come then. He still couldn’t precisely explain the reason, even now. If someone asked him, he wouldn’t be able to give them a decent enough answer. Something had drawn him to the hospital, had drawn him back to the man, and now he spent most days seeing him.

Though, that hadn’t stopped him from coming up with reasons.

In the beginning, he’d thought it was to see for himself what avarice could turn a person into. To derive some sort of amusement at Voldemort’s expense, to witness for himself just how far the name of “Lord Voldemort” could go. It was a selfish thought. Enough to elicit a feeling of guilt now, but at that time, he’d believed that to be his reason. He’d been driven so mad by his anger and sorrow that it only made sense that he’d latch onto this explanation.

Because why shouldn’t he have? Why shouldn’t he see for himself what had become of Voldemort, despite his reservations with the man’s imprisonment in that hospital? He had all the reason to go, to rub it in the man’s face that even his  _name_  was lost to time.

After all, no one knew who this man was. The name Voldemort was overshadowed by the peaceful age that followed his fall. All that they knew, that everyone understood, was that there was a dangerous man imprisoned in St. Mungos. They only knew him as  _immortal_ ; as a creature with beautiful features that slept his days away in a room bathed in white.

The name “Voldemort” had melted into the sands of time, forgotten. As most things often did when life continued on.

Time waited for no one and nothing. No one could go against it, could leave permanent lines across the sand. Not even Voldemort, who worked endlessly to leave his mark.

But then the first visit became a second, and that second visit became a third, until Harry eventually lost count of how many visits he’d paid Tom. The anger and sorrow dissipated with each trip; with each time he sat beside the man’s side, waiting for something he could not explain.

Harry didn’t know how many visits it took before all he felt was bitter emptiness. Was it the tenth or the thirtieth visit? Harry didn’t know for certain.

That hardly mattered now, however.

Harry couldn’t stop seeing him even if he’d wanted to. The emptiness was a living, breathing thing. It was a cloud that seeped into his bones, that wedged itself between the gaps between skin and muscle. It was a noxious feeling in the pit of his stomach that refused to go away—a writhing mass that danced along the back of his thoughts with Tom Riddle’s face reflected in that abyss.

 _You’re alone..._ The man would say behind Harry’s eyelids, would echo into his eardrums endlessly.

The name Voldemort was dead, but Tom Riddle still remained, sleeping peacefully on that bed. The shadow of the monster, the angel before the demon had erased milky skin and handsome features.

It was as if time had not passed at all for him. As if the man had not murdered Harry’s parents all those years ago, as if he hadn’t performed the darkest of rituals and crawled out of that cauldron. He was the only thing that remained unchanged, the only constant in Harry’s life.

Everyone Harry knew, everyone he loved, had died of old age. But  _Tom Riddle_  was there. As he always was. In his head, in his dreams, and sleeping on that bed until the day the healers found a way to reverse whatever it was he’d done.

It should have disturbed him how often he found his thoughts traveling back to this man, how often he saw him— _heard him_ —whispering into his mind. He was asleep, but he had never seemed more alive. This should have been cause for concern, but Harry only felt resigned to it. Only felt  _peace_  as wrong as that was.

Because what else was there for him to feel? What else was there for him now? He couldn’t die, and to live was to watch every new acquaintance he made pass away. They would all eventually leave him, just as his friends had. He couldn’t follow, couldn’t claim the death he’d desired since Ginny exhaled her last breath, grey hair and pale, wrinkly skin slackening in death.

Tom Riddle was the only one that stayed, and although it was  _wrong_  to feel relieved by this fact, to feel even an iota of peace sitting beside a mass murderer, it was better than being on his own.

The  _irony_  of it, the hilarity of this fact, had nearly driven him to tears one too many times in the past, but now, he barely registered the twinge of guilt each time he greeted the receptionist. This was his life now, this was the price he paid for housing Tom Riddle’s soul for as long as he had. It was his burden to bear, his sin to carry on his shoulders.

_Voldemort is your past, present, and future._

It was absurd that this was what it’d come to. That this was his fate, after all he had sacrificed, after all that he had done for everyone. Everything had amounted to  _nothing_ , and he only had himself to blame.

Voldemort was still alive, even if a mere shadow of himself. Even if no one knew that this man, this Lucifer, was not in the shape of Satan. He was there, sleeping his days away, unaware of what he had done to both of them.

It was in these visits, in his grief and loneliness, that Harry wished Voldemort would one day wake, as stupid as that was. He wished that Voldemort, somehow, could  _speak_  to him from outside of the false memories in his head, that Voldemort too would carry this burden; the weight of immortality that Harry had had to live through for almost 150 years. Immortality was what  _Voldemort_  had wanted, and it was unfair for Harry to have that stupid dream forced onto him.

Immortality was nothing when everyone that you loved and all of your dreams crumbled before your very eyes. What did it matter when you could never rest, when you had to constantly live through acquaintances fading into the night in what seemed like a blink of an eye? He was alone. Always alone. The least Voldemort could do was be awake to fill the emptiness wrapped around his soul, to undo whatever it was that he’d done so that Harry could finally  _die_  in peace.

It had taken him a long time to understand why he had gone to see him on that first day, but now Harry knew why. It wasn’t in some misguided need to gloat. It wasn’t to see Voldemort at his lowest, to see him blessed with his immortality and cursed with slumber. It wasn’t to keep an eye on the experiments conducted and to ensure that Voldemort was treated humanely.

No. It was for none of these reasons.

Harry was alone, and it was that loneliness that forced him to go. Waiting for the day that maybe Voldemort would finally wake and strike him down. Whenever that was, if that day would ever come at all.

"Harry?”

A surprised jolt curled up his spine at the sound of his name. It was whispered lowly, a soothing tenor. Harry hadn’t expected it. He was often left alone with Tom. The healers only ever addressed him if the hospital was closing or they needed to take Tom down to the Unspeakables—

Clearing his throat, Harry ripped his attention away from the slumbering Dark Lord to address the witch. His cheeks felt warmer than usual, embarrassed that he’d once again lost track of time and caught by surprise while boring a hole into Tom’s face.

_How long have I been here?_

“Is it time for me to leave?” He asked, needing confirmation that  _yes_ , he killed more time than permitted at Tom’s side.

The witch looked apologetic, her lips turning into a soft, understanding smile that told him that that was exactly the case. Harry had come in early that morning, minutes after the doors opened to the public. He hadn’t planned to sit beside Tom for more than an hour, that was the goal he had set for himself at the time, but it seemed that a whole  _day_  had passed without his awareness.

A flush spread along his cheeks, ashamed. He’d done it again. It’d been happening too much lately.

“Yes, dear. But you know, if you want to stay a little longer, it isn’t trouble at all. You’ve been visiting this young man for years now, just watching. I don’t think anyone would really mind if you stay overnight just this once.”

Harry wanted to protest, wanted to say that he didn’t want to stay overnight, but before he could say just that, the healer had turned away and left down the way she’d come. The door closed with a click behind her, and Harry found himself at a loss of what to do then, mouth hanging open with words he didn’t have the chance to speak.

He should leave, he knew. Tom would remain where he was. He’d been sleeping for so long; it wouldn’t make a difference whether Harry stayed there overnight or not.

Still, he found himself tempted by the idea. The witches had never allowed him to stay overnight before. They always kicked him out promptly at 8 o’clock sharp. It was the routine. It was policy.

Why the mediwitch— _Delphini_ , she said her name was—allowed him today of all days to do so was a mystery.

Though it didn’t stop him from dragging his seat closer to where the man slept. He didn’t know why he did it, but something inside him urged him to. It whispered into his head, murmured into his brain that he needed to get closer. It was a susurration, like the flash of a memory long forgotten coaxing him to bridge the space between them.

So he did, all without tearing his eyes away from Tom’s serene face. Watching, always watching, how Tom’s eyelids fluttered as if seeing something unfold behind them—a vivid dream, perhaps, that Harry could not witness for himself.

It made Tom look vulnerable, almost human in a way, to see him like this. To see that, even Tom, despite the poison that swirled in his heart, was capable of dreaming things too.

 _I wonder what he dreams about..._ Harry wondered, unconsciously leaning closer to take in more of Tom’s face, as if doing so would yield him an answer to his silent question. He could see each individual eyelash, the way they curled beneath his eyes, adding a touch of femininity that Harry hadn’t noticed before when he’d seen memories of Tom Riddle in the Pensieve, when he’d met him for the first time in the Chamber of Secrets, nor the previous times he’d visited.

His eyes followed the curve of Tom’s eyes, the way they slanted just slightly at the ends and how they fit proportionally to the rest of his face. His jaw was sharp and angular, neither too strong nor square, a perfect balance that Harry couldn’t help but stare at.

_A fallen angel before sin had robbed him of his beauty._

Was this how he tricked his victims? Did he seduce them with carefully whispered words, did he flutter his lashes at them before twisting his lips into a charming smile? Did he ever show the world this face, dreaming and chasing after realities that would never exist in the world Harry lived?

These thoughts came without sign of it stopping. They blossomed behind Harry’s head, just as intrusive as he felt while lingering in the silent hospital.

Still, none of that registered.

Harry stared at the curve of Tom’s nose, followed the shape of his brow bones, traced the swell of his lips and how red they looked on his pale skin. Harry took it all in as if he could divine these secrets from sight alone.

There was no way to tell how long he remained that way, drinking his fill, but it had to be longer than ever before. When he blinked, the light from the hallway was off—the room bathed in shadows that hadn’t been there before. An absolute silence bled from the walls. No sound save for his and Tom’s breaths could be heard—the isolation almost unsettling.

 _You shouldn’t be here..._ A voice said in his head, but Harry did not move. He couldn’t. Somehow, in the middle of his staring, he’d leaned in so far that he was centimeters from Tom’s face, practically breathing the same air.

No alarm came with that realization. Harry was only strangely fascinated with the quivering of the man’s lips, and how, in his sleep, a tongue poked from his mouth as if chasing after a drop of moisture that trickled down from the seam of his mouth.

_I wonder how they would—_

Harry reared back as if burned, a warm flush creeping up his face. He didn’t know where that thought had come from. It was unacceptable, it was strange that he could have such thoughts about a person that he had hated and envied for so long.

Hated because Tom had forced him to live beyond what a wizard was permitted to live, without aging at all; envied because he was sleeping eternity away, completely free of the nightmares that ruined all thought of rest for Harry.

Harry decided right then that he needed to leave. He’d overstayed his welcome.

And then, just as he was about to take a step back, to leave and forget just what he’d considered doing to his  _enemy_ , something latched onto his wrist to stop him in his tracks. It was hot. The sensation burned him him from the inside out, the heat spreading from that single point outward. It suddenly felt difficult to breathe.

 _Sshhhh_.

It took him seconds to realize that it was Tom’s hand, that the warmth and the grip on his left wrist were five fingers and a palm digging into his wrist.

“W-what?”

A powerful wave of shock overtook him, and Harry yanked his arm back as if he’d been bitten, but the hand refused to let him go, surprisingly strong despite the man remaining inanimate for so many years.

“ _Harry_...” A baritone voice murmured, still heavy with sleep.

Everything around him stilled. His heart and his breathing all came to a stop, his eyes snapping away from where Tom’s hand had caught his wrist to the face Harry had been gazing into almost all evening. A face he’d seen too often in his dreams, that he looked upon with growing fascination each time he paid Tom a visit.

Red stared back at him. The brilliant crimson equal parts bleary and confused.

Harry was speechless.

“ _Potter_...” Tom said, as if weighing each syllable on his tongue.

Harry did not speak nor move. He couldn’t, even if he’d wanted to. His shock kept him rooted in place, the grip on his wrist forgotten by the sudden realization that Tom was  _awake_.

“ _Harry...Potter_...”

The man breathed, practically crooning his name out before tugging Harry closer than before, until Harry’s chest was flush against Tom’s, their lips only a centimeter from touching. Nothing registered except the gleam of crimson in those eyes, than the  _life_  that suddenly rippled across that face.

His chest constricted with fear.

 _This isn’t supposed to happen_...A thought whispered into his head, the voice alarmed even if the rest of him wasn’t. His emotions were oddly disconnected from reality, as if there were some of lag between the real world and how he perceived it. His body was relaxed, but his  _mind_ \--

It screamed for him to move.

_“Finally...I can touch you…”_


	33. Wisp

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tomarry + No prompt  
> Rating: T  
> Warnings: Dark themes, Mentions of blood. Obsession. First Person POV. 
> 
> Leave comments if you liked.

Your lip curls, and I watch, fascinated by the way the flesh twists. They are cherry red, freshly bitten. As if you’d spent the past few minutes gnawing at the flesh irritably.

I wonder how they would feel pressing against mine, if they would taste as sweet as they look.

“Are you even listening to me?” You say, and I am torn away from my thoughts. My focus shifts from your lips, and I catch the brilliant green of your irises. They are gleaming brightly, the sunlight trickling from the windows making them radiate. Like emeralds put on display behind a jewelry store, waiting for a loving couple to walk near and become caught by their spell.

I find myself riveted by them, momentarily forgetting that you had spoken at all. It is easy to, when most of what you say is thick with sarcasm and fury.

“ _Tom_ ,” you growl. A smile twists across my lips, irrepressible. Your eyes narrow with anger, your fingers clench with rage, but still, I watch you. You won’t do a thing, you won’t lift a finger. You need me just as much as I need you, and it would be a moot point to harm the one person that could get you out of this mess.

A mess I caused, but this isn’t something  _you_  need to know.

“Yes, Harry?” I say, a thrill rushing up my spine when your anger falters. A trembling breath, a momentary step back, and  _oh, how sweet it is to watch._  You’re nervous. Uncomfortable by something on my face—perhaps something that I said—and I can’t help myself.

I step closer, bridge the careful space between us to catch a lock of your hair between my fingers. Your features twist, your cheeks flush, and I drink it all in. Swallow you up, mouth salivating at the thought of just what  _else_  I can make you do.

“Y-you don’t need to be this close,” a stutter tears from out of your lips, and my lips can’t help themselves. My smile widens into a grin, and your pupils blow wide, nearly eating the green. Either from fear or arousal, I don’t know. But that hardly matters to me. Your attention on me, regardless of the reason, whether from fear or admiration, is exciting enough.

I like it when your eyes are only on me; when your thoughts are only on me and what I will  _do_.

“True. It isn’t necessary at all,” I murmur. Voice soft, lulling in the way only I am capable of when I am with my prey. You recognize it for what it is, I can tell, because your eyes only widen in response.

“But you see, Harry, I  _want_  to be,” I lean in until our breaths mingle. My fingers sweep through your riotous curls, following along a path only I can sense, until they tangle gently around your hair. It’s surprisingly easy to do. Your hair has always been chaotic; a personification of your defiant and stubborn nature. There is no taming your hair, just as there is no taming you. And yet—

You don’t resist. Right now, your hair cooperates with the movement, almost as if it knows that any show of disobedience will be met with swift retribution. Sensing somehow, that in this moment, defiance would not be met with indulgence, but with a punishing twist of my fingers.

_Good, you’re learning._

“Why?” You exhale, and I step closer until our chests touch. Your warmth bleeds through my dress shirt, and I curl my fingers around your head. I bring you closer, and you do not fight me even as you grow rigid beneath me.

I think about the question for a brief moment. Entertaining, perhaps, the idea of answering honestly before dismissing it as quickly as it came. You don’t need to know why. It wouldn’t change a thing if you knew.

Still, I wait a moment, indulging in your warmth and your growing discomfort. Watching your lips tighten with displeasure, relishing in the sound of your breaths coming more quickly; unable to repress such an obvious reaction to my presence.

“Because you’re mine—” I whisper the words into your ear, a soft laugh escaping my lips when you tremble. Your ear has gone crimson, and I can’t help but wonder just what else I can make redden with just a mere utterance. “—And what is mine, I keep  _close_.”

A short gasp tears from your throat, and a gnawing hunger swells in the pit of my stomach. It yearns for a taste, urges me to draw your flesh into my mouth and  _chew_. It whispers to me, voice sly, to consume. The desire to bite down is overwhelming, and I press closer.

“W-wait, Tom—” You choke, but I ignore your protests. They are empty words; mere pests in my quest to taste iron and sweat, to drink in the scent of earth and ocean from your skin.

I suck the shell of your ear into my mouth, and I groan at the soft whimper that escapes you. Hands press against my shoulders, but I hardly notice, teeth closing around your skin to bite down until your rich essence floods my mouth—

“ _Stop_!” You shout, and you shove with all the force you possess. I feel myself vault back, but none of it registers to me. Iron is thick on my tongue, droplets of your blood running down my chin.

Your eyes are wide with fear, your lip trembling with pain and anger.

You’ve never looked more beautiful than now. With your hand pressed to your ear, dark skin wet with blood running from the open wound.

“Beautiful...” I say, and you sneer, eyes flashing with rage before you turn around and rush beyond the common room and through the portrait door. All without sparing me a glance.

A laugh escapes my lips without permission, suddenly delighted by the prospect of giving chase. The hunger swells inside me again; its whispers now loud, wailing out in desirous cries.

I don’t follow after you, however. Even when those voices urge me to. It simply wouldn’t do to push more than I already have.

 _After all_ , I grin to myself,  _I drew first blood_.


	34. Parched

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: None  
> Rating: M  
> Warning: Harry's filthy thoughts. Unresolved sexual content. Violence. Masochism. Pining. Alternate Universe-They grew up together.
> 
> Thank you Crybrid for betaing <3

Harry didn't know what to do.  
  
It was already embarrassing enough that he'd been caught staring at Riddle one too many times already. He didn't need his stupid mouth to get him into more trouble than it was worth, but he simply couldn’t help it.

Harry was obsessed.

Riddle was the most beautiful person he had ever laid his eyes on. His eyes were like the ocean in the night, the black swallowing up his own gaze every time he managed to catch the boy's eyes in the hallway. There was just something about being underneath that stare that made insides clench too tight in his belly. As if someone had placed a weight over his chest and _pressed_ against his ribcage until bone shattered.  
  
It was embarrassing how much he wanted Riddle. But it was that very same shameful feeling, the kind that defied all reason, that made his heart beat and his breath catch with arousal. The danger attracted him, enthralled him. Without that thrill, Harry was certain he wouldn’t be as attracted to Riddle as he was.  
  
The boy oozed danger. The thick waves of magic surrounding his body belied it, screamed it so loudly that it was still strange to Harry that no one else had noticed. Then again, Harry watched the boy more closely than anyone else dared. Others stared, admired the boy for his intelligence and wit—the perfect picture of a gentlemen.

But no one truly _saw_ Riddle. Not like Harry did.

There was a quiet strength to Riddle that just demanded to be seen. One that Harry was not willing to ignore, not when it made his insides curl in ways that no other had ever made him experience before.

Harry wanted to _know_ how it would feel to be crushed beneath Riddle's weight, to be arrested by more than just his gaze. Crushed, shattered to pieces by the strength of Riddle’s hands. All for the euphoric high of Riddle’s fingers on his neck, of his magic draining the air from his lungs.

It drove him mad. Witnessing Riddle how time and time again, Riddle controlled his magic as naturally as Harry took the skies. It was the same thrill, the same performance. Except, Riddle did it all with just the tips of his fingers—with just a twist of his wrist and a level stare.

Not even Harry, as talented as he was on his broom, could mimic something quite like that. His broom obeyed, but it was not a part of his being. There was still sentience—still resistance when the weather was unfavorable.

Riddle held his wand as if it were an extension of himself. As if the end of that wand were the tips of his fingers, that grip taut and unyielding as he dueled against his opponents for Defense Against the Dark Arts.

Harry couldn’t help himself. Riddle was intoxicating when he dueled, even when the boy was clearly holding himself back. A fact no one else save for Harry seemed to notice. Hermione suspected it, but she didn’t _know_ . Not like Harry did, _never_ like Harry did.

Even if he’d yet to see for himself just how powerful Tom Riddle was. This was all conjecture. He had put the pieces together, gathered all there was to know from obsessive observation.

But that wasn’t enough. No, it would _never_ be enough. Harry wanted to know everything about Riddle.

He wanted to know what it was like to be at the end of that wand with Riddle unrestrained. To experience for himself just how brutal Riddle could be; the boy’s fury crackling just beneath Riddle’s skin, the tendrils of his power lapping at Harry’s flesh like curious hands against his neck.

The fury lay hidden beneath Riddle’s mask, but Harry would unveil it. He’d risk everything for it, drink from that ichor and let himself choke on the darkness hidden within that mind, lurking in the shadows of his curled lips.

 _Like the lethal predator he was; a sharpened blade poised to slit through flesh and bone..._  
  
And it was exactly for these reasons that Harry now found himself standing in the middle of the crowded hallway with Riddle looking him directly in the eye. It’d been unexpected, a complete shock to be singled out from the mass of students that wandered through Hogwarts walls.

Harry hadn’t planned on running into him in the first place. In fact, he’d done everything possible to avoid the very boy he thought of obsessively since hitting puberty back in Second Year.

It made something dark and insidious swell inside him. A hunger he couldn’t contain, that nearly drove him mad with excitement.

"Is there something wrong, Potter?" Riddle mused, immediately snapping Harry from his thoughts. The haze of arousal dissipated instantly. It gave way to a thrum of anxiety that always lurked in the back of his mind, whispering for him to see _sense_ , to see reason where there wasn’t any, when caught Riddle’s web.

Minutes passed, but Harry hardly felt the seconds trickle by. He didn’t know long it was that he remained silent, eyes wide and riveted by Riddle’s spidery lashes.

Nothing mattered except for that stare. He could scarcely breathe,his mouth suddenly dry. No words came to him, and Harry, for once in his life, didn’t know how to act.

His heart was beating a mile per minute. Stomach tight in both fear and arousal because Tom was _talking_ to him. The boy of his dreams—the one he had never dared approach since discovering his feelings—had said his _name._ Harry’s tongue felt heavy in his mouth, and his fingers curled into tight fists as he struggled to fight off the rush of adrenaline pumping through his veins.  
  
_He is looking at me_ , Harry thought, his face growing hotter when Riddle continued to look at him curiously, his lips pressed into a neutral line.

_What could he be thinking?_

Then, Riddle licked his bottom lip, and Harry’s attention snapped instantly to the boy's mouth. The lips were a rosy hue, wet and glistening with saliva. Heat pooled lowly in his gut, and thoughts that were less than appropriate came to the forefront of his mind. As if Riddle’s mouth, somehow, had torn out each and every desire Harry had ever felt for the boy.

Harry’s mind drank in the shape of those lips, imagined just how they would taste against his own...whispering, teasing him with images of that mouth trailing along his throat before teeth dug into the tender flesh. Stomach clenching, Harry could practically feel Riddle’s breath on his face, stealing every bit of air that Harry failed to breathe.

This was madness, he knew. This was obsessive, and toxic. He shouldn’t want this boy as much as he did, but _Merlin_ , he did. He hungered for Riddle like a voracious lion desired prey—to taste iron and copper along his tongue.

“Potter?” Riddle said, but Harry was no longer listening.

 _Don’t you want to know how good he’ll taste, Harry?_ The thought came, unbidden. It was sly, teasing. Nothing like the regular thoughts that swam through his mind. _Don’t you want to know how they’d taste against yours? How his teeth would feel, chewing you up?_ Harry saw it, unable to quash the thoughts as they came.

He saw himself kissing Riddle, those lips devouring his own with a purposeful curl of his mouth. Harry’s breath hitched, as if he were experiencing it in the real world. As if, he were truly tasting Riddle’s saliva, drinking that ambrosia and swallowing up the sound of Riddle’s pleased moans.

Harry stopped breathing, possessed by the images that refused to end. His imagination refused to be silenced, to be curtailed. Riddle awoke something in him and Harry had no way of stopping it. Not when Riddle was—

 _A row of white teeth latched onto his trembling mouth, incisors pressed against the flesh. Dark and hungry eyes looked back at him, and Harry shook, the dark promise lurking in those depths said it all. Riddle would bite down until he bled, he’d cut him open for just a taste—_  
  
Harry tore himself from the fantasy before it consumed him, both horrified and aroused by the direction his perverse thoughts had taken him.  
  
_Calm down, Harry. You need to keep yourself together._

Harry dropped his gaze to Riddle's feet after a beat, eyes fixed on Riddle’s polished shoes. They gleamed brightly beneath the lit sconces of the hallway.

They were just as well kept as the rest of him. Impeccable.

 _I wonder just how they’d feel crushing me beneath their—_  
  
" _Harry_?" Riddle said, and Harry, startled, turned his attention back to Riddle’s face. Realizing just then that he’d gotten lost in thought once again.

Black eyes were staring intently into his own, no longer as empty as they’d been before. There was something lurking in the depths. A something that looked like a strange amalgamation of amusement and confusion, as if Riddle couldn’t quite put his finger on the kind of mystery Harry posed.

Harry lost himself in his stare, enraptured by both the sound of his own _name_ from Riddle’s mouth, and how seductive it was. Both awed and shocked that Riddle would deign to speak his first name.

Harry, in all the time he’d been in Hogwarts, had never heard the boy speak his name before. It sounded like how chocolate felt on his tongue, smooth and comforting. Seductive and indulgent. It was _sinful_ how Riddle managed to make something as blithe...exquisite.

Heat rushed to Harry's navel. Liquid fire cut along his psyche, silenced the doubts and restraints that kept him perfectly still. It was too much. He’d spent so long fantasizing that he was simply no match for the reality of this. There was no resisting the pull of this attraction— _obsession_.

He was no match for it. Nothing could have prepared him for the reality of this, and knew right then that he was _lost._

The world around them, the people passing them in the hallway, faded into nothing. All sound, all sight, save for the handsome face of Tom Riddle remained. The outside world didn’t matter when _he_ was looking at him.  
  
Harry flushed a deeper crimson, gaze dropping shyly for a moment,  before gathering his composure to speak. This was his chance. This was the moment he could learn for himself just how dark Riddle was— _if he could crush you with just a glance, if you beg nicely for the pain_

His resolve wavered slightly when Riddle cocked a brow in expectation, dark eyes narrowed slightly when Harry had yet to acknowledge Riddle’s words.

It was all the motivation Harry needed. He couldn’t ruin this. He was a _Gryffindor_ , a lion, not a frightened kitten. He’d confess. He’d do whatever it took to get Riddle to notice him in the way he wanted.

Even if it might mean rejection. It was a risk he would take.

"I-I like your shoes. They would look even nicer over me, crushing both my bones and pride," Harry said, cringing internally at how desperate he sounded. That he, Harry Potter, would say such things out in the open where anyone else could overhear—

But Harry pressed on, stepping closer to Riddle. This was his only _chance_. This might never happen again. 

"You have beautiful hands, they look lovely when you're handling your wand."

Harry wanted to die, but he couldn't stop himself. The words came without thought, without any sign of ceasing. He’d already started speaking, there was simply no way for him to take it all back. He’d made this bed, and now he would lay in it.

Though he'd prefer if he was laying in it with Riddle at his side. If his embarrassment, his affections, amounted to something in the end. If it was _enough_ to hold a sliver of Riddle’s attention.  
  
"They'd look even better wrapped around my neck, stealing away the air from my lungs," Harry finished, hands sweating and shoulders shaking.

He’d done it. He’d finally confessed.  
  
Relief did not come.

Harry didn’t feel any better than he had before he’d confessed. In fact, he almost felt worse. As if at any moment, his heart would cease beating to save him the embarrassment of Riddle’s inevitable rejection.

It was awful. The way this made him feel, and yet—

Even if it was terrible, even if he wanted to vomit, this discomfort was still better than the alternative. Of never _knowing_ for himself if Riddle could ever reciprocate this, as imminent as his rejection was.

Experiencing this anxiety was better than hiding away from his strange emotions. Bottling this all up without a way of letting it out would only hurt him, foster the obsessive feelings that cut along his spine when Riddle so much as glanced in his general direction.

 _Merlin_ , did Harry want him. More than was normal, but even he knew how horrid his odds were.

Riddle would _never_ like him. The boy was untouchable and aloof. The odds were against him no matter how optimistic he was.

No girl or boy had ever been able to get more than a handshake or a kiss on the hand from the Head Boy. Not the beautiful Daphne Greengrass and certainly not Draco Malfoy when he’d attempted to charm Riddle into his circle.

So how would Harry, the reckless Gryffindor prince, ever manage? If not even they could do it?

Still, it didn’t stop Harry from wanting him, from at least confessing.    
  
Riddle expression froze in place. His features emptied completely of all emotion before, without warning, he stepped into Harry’s space.  
  
Harry didn’t move, entranced by the strange gleam in the boy's eyes. He was helpless, a slave to his own desires. Heat curled in his belly, navel clenching with an excited thrill.

It was as if someone had simultaneously cast a body bind and heating charm all at once. Body frozen and skin hot enough to scald his insides.  
  
Riddle didn't stop until he was only a centimeter away, his taller frame making Harry crane his neck to look at his face.

_Merlin..._

And then Riddle leaned forward, cutting the short distance between their faces. Surprise colored Harry's face a deeper shade of red, irrepressible  when Riddle's lips— _his mouth—_ pressed so close to his ear that Harry could feel each breath the man exhaled into the skin.  
  
_Oh Merlin, I'm—_  
  
"Meet me at the Astronomy after curfew. If you make this request while on your knees, perhaps, I may consider allowing you the privilege of cleaning the soles of my shoes with your tongue,” Riddle purred.

Harry's mind ceased functioning.  
  
Harry had never been this hard in his entire life. So much so that he didn't even notice when Riddle chuckled into his ear and stepped back to give him a slow once over.

It was the most intense look Harry had ever had thrown in his direction. Riddle stripped him bare. Took him in from his scuffed shoes to the top of his messy hair, as if memorizing the shape of his body before he turned and strode away.  
  
Harry’s legs trembled with arousal and anticipation. Uncomprehending that Riddle had actually _noticed_ him.  
  
_Godric, what have I done?_


	35. The Power and the Glory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: None  
> Rating: M  
> Ship: Harrymort  
> Tags: Dark Harry, Sexual Content, Murder, Psychological Break, Unreliable narrator, Voldemort Wins- AU, Reference to Cursed Child
> 
> This is different than my usual. I don't think I will be writing a Dark Harry again since it's not for me, but here you are. The mind takes you in weird directions and this happened to be the one mine took. (I also suggest you listen to The Power and the Glory by IAMX. It was what I listened to as I wrote this).
> 
> Leave a comment if you enjoyed.
> 
> Thank you, rach for betaing :)

“We shouldn’t be doing—” the faceless Death Eater did not get to finish his words. For Harry, in that second, decided that he would not allow the man to ruin his fun.

Harry pressed close enough that his bare chest grazed the man’s shirt, his thighs caging the man’s hips until there was nowhere else to go. He didn’t know who this man was, but that small fact didn’t  _ matter _ . Not really.

They were all the same. Men and women the Dark Lord had seduced to his side, idealistic fools that knew Voldemort as a  _ leader  _ rather than the terrorist Harry had come to know for the majority of his life. They were insects that danced only to the tune Voldemort saw fit to play for them.

What they thought and did was insignificant. They were monsters. Accessories to the atrocities the Dark Lord permitted in his new government. They could all  _ rot  _ for all he cared.

“Shhh, it could be our little secret,” Harry whispered into the man’s ear, voice soft. A seductive lilt to the words no one that knew who Harry was would ever associate him with. He had been a boy of light, a creature that only knew kindness and love.

But that was a long time ago. There was none of that boy left for even the vultures to pick at with their long, sharp beaks.

Harry couldn’t see the man’s face, but the harsh exhalation from unseen lips was enough to alert Harry  of just how well the seduction had been received. There was no ding in his mask, in the way he romanced even the staunchest straight man into his hands. 

They were _ all  _ the same in the end. Weak to gentleness when their lives were harsh beneath Lord Voldemort’s callous regime. But there was no softness in his heart, no warmth to his soul despite the heat writhing just centimeters beneath his skin. 

The golden rings around his ankles and wrists were perhaps the only thing truly golden about him now.

Harry Potter had been broken and remade into a new man. His heart had become stone, hardened by the layers of scars and atrocities he’d been forced to witness. Death after death of friends he had known. Brands and tattoos etched onto his skin until there was nothing left of the pliant, gleaming skin of a boy born from the sun. 

The war had made him into a martyr, but Lord Voldemort had turned into him a devil. A creature bound to a soulless master that only knew manipulation and death. It was only fitting that he, the Boy Who Dared Survive, would erode along the way. Broken down to fit the new world order that Voldemort continued to amass, an army of sycophants and enamored youths that knew nothing of what  _ freedom  _ tasted of.

Only Harry knew what that was, what  _ life  _ before Voldemort became everything. Ignorance...truly was bliss, in that respect.

“He’ll  _ k-know _ , the Dark Lord  _ always  _ knows,” the man pled, frozen stiff within Harry’s lax embrace. Afraid that any movement, even accidental, would somehow alert Harry’s onerous guard. It almost made Harry laugh to see a man nearly twice his weight quiver like a leaf. 

Harry Potter was thin. Forever soft and youthful in spite of the decades that had passed since he’d turned eighteen years old, since he’d  _ lost  _ the Battle of Hogwarts all those years ago. It was ridiculous that one of Voldemort’s men would be so afraid. Terrified by the temptation of Harry’s skin and the promises that swam within the gleam of his gaze.

It made this game all the sweeter.

“But aren’t you curious about why the Dark Lord keeps me at his side? What it is that I possess that makes your  _ master _ guard me like a precious jewel?” Harry asked, fingers resting on the man’s shoulders. 

The man flinched, but Harry did not stop. No. He  _ refused. _

This was the most entertainment Harry had had in years. To see the Dark Lord’s followers quiver at the mere sight of him, to know that they feared his flirtatious murmurs and the chaos that would ensue should they be the recipient of his attentions, was  _ intoxicating.  _ It was the greatest kind of high, to see men that Voldemort had personally brainwashed beside themselves when it came to Voldemort’s mysterious charge. A boy they knew the Dark Lord possessed but knew little of. 

Except, of course, that  _ Harry _ belonged to the Dark Lord.

Voldemort’s orders were absolute. Voldemort had left no room for disobedience, for even  _ error.  _ If anyone dared to press their fingers against Harry’s skin, to gaze too long and to covet something that belonged undeniably to the Dark Lord, would suffer for their transgression. A fate no one wished to face, was  _ terrified _ , of experiencing.

To touch, to brand their hands across Harry’s skin, was  _ death _ . A poison that would run, run,  _ run  _ down the victim’s fingers until all they knew, and all they felt, was the chilling lips of a Dementor’s kiss. It was what Voldemort had promised to them all, announced to the world with Harry at his side. 

_ He is mine. Touch him, and you shall learn for yourselves how merciful death can be. _

It was laughable, for the Dark Lord to  _ claim  _ him before an audience when there was nothing to claim. The Harry Potter everyone knew and loved was gone. 

All that was left was a boy that no longer recognized himself in the rippling surface of shallow waters.

Harry leaned in further until his breath misted against the nameless man’s clothed neck, his teeth aching with need to bite, bite, and  _ bite  _ until it was swollen and red. Hungry for blood to gush into his mouth, to dribble down his chin and smear the white robes Voldemort had insisted he wear.

_ Ruin the purity just as he has ruined  _ you.

“W-we cannot—”

Harry’s laughter interrupted him, hands smoothing over the man’s shoulders until his hands wrapped loosely around the stranger’s neck. A non-verbal threat of his own making, one that Harry would never go through with, but wished to burn into that clothed neck nevertheless.

It was the closest to control Harry had. Like flying near the sun without burning, the waxen sheen of his flesh immune to the caprices of a dangerous flame. It made him feel  _ powerful  _ to hold this man’s life in his hands.

To know that Voldemort, even when he delighted with his success in the war, was still a  _ loser  _ in his own right. For Harry, though lost in mind but not in body, still knew where to hurt him most. To covet was a sin, Harry had read once upon a time, and the Dark Lord coveted so much. Ached and thirsted for what he did not possess, for what he could not have. How easy it was to force the man’s hand.

_ To sow the seed of doubt and watch the fruit of the poisonous tree grow. _

“But it’s so  _ lonely _ . Voldemort is never here. He leaves me here to wallow in my solitude as he enjoys the splendors of the outside world. An empire of his own making that I know so little of...” Harry crooned, smiling when the man shuddered beneath him and a sharp gasp fled covered lips.

“But you’re here. With  _ me _ . You can tell me of this world, can show me all that there is to know. You can do so much for me more than Lord Voldemort  _ ever _ could...”

The lies came easily, his honor and morality no longer restraining his falsities. 

A pleased purr rumbled in his throat when the man’s fingers twitched, as if itching to press against his back and explore the lines of skin Voldemort had not touched in ages.

Excitement swelled within him, the high of stalking and waiting, of bending and twisting the unsuspecting to his will enough to make him smile. For Harry knew that the moment this man crumbled, the moment he gave in just as the others before him, would be his downfall.

_ Just as pawns died in the name of the game. _

The anticipation was  _ almost  _ as exquisite as the aftermath that would surely follow. 

“He isn’t  _ here...  _ ” Harry purred, caging the man further into the wall of his bedroom, the mirror on the right side of the trembling Death Eater giving Harry a nice view of the doorway at his back. “It is only  _ you and me _ .”

Then, like a crack of a whip, Harry felt the man’s resistance crumble.

Hands that once laid loosely to the man’s sides were crushing into Harry’s hips, fingers tight enough to send jolts of misplaced ecstasy down Harry’s spine. A low moan escaped Harry’s lips, and Harry leaned in, hands pulling onto the man’s robes with a frenzy he didn’t need to fake. 

To be  _ touched _ , to be  _ wanted _ , after all he had been through always made him feel alive. It lit the spark Voldemort had dedicated years into snuffing out, whispered intricate spells into the shell of his ears he hadn’t heard since Voldemort had departed.

Without Voldemort’s attentions, without a monster to rally against, to defy at each turn, Harry was nothing more than a corpse with cruel seedlings in his maw. Blossoming in the shadows, away from the light he’d thrived in for most of his life, like some sordid secret families hid away in darkened basements and dusty attics.

In this moment, in the calm before the storm, Harry was all this man would see.

Harry sank into the touches, drank in the desperate panting of a Death Eater that had minutes to live, that would breathe his last breaths only because Harry had chosen him. No other reason, no other interest, but to elicit rage in Voldemort’s mind.

It was cruel, but there was no kindness left for him to give.

A hand released its tight grip on his hip and trailed up his stomach, curved over his ribs like vines twisted ‘round ancient trees, until they settled in his curly hair. Nails scratched at his scalp pleasantly, fingers tightened gently around the strands to press him closer, to force him nearer to the Death Eater’s clothed mouth.

And Harry allowed it, followed him until their bodies were almost one. His thighs pressed against wide thighs, his chest to a soft chest, his groin to hard flesh, and Harry felt  _ alive. _

“Yes, that’s _ it _ ,” Harry groaned, grinding his hips into the man’s hard cock, humming when it elicited a loud cry. The sound sent another delicious jolt up Harry’s spine, nearly drowning out tingles of awareness that bloomed to life at the nape of his neck.

A smile threatened to break along Harry’s mouth. His mirth and vicious amusement like an illness that rotted perfectly good meat. 

Voldemort was watching. How the man had managed to slip past the mirror without being seen, how the monster had leaked through his senses without letting Harry know at all, exciting. Thrilling in a way that it should not have been, but  _ was _ . 

This fact did not frighten him. Not like it would have in the past when he still had a  _ mind  _ of his own, a mind pure and clean like the robes draped around his skin.

But that boy was dead.

All that remained now was the creature Voldemort had bred, and  _ oh,  _ how it hungered, how it wanted to ruin everything Voldemort had dedicated his entire existence into creating. All to see the man focus his distanced eyes on him, to feel the monster’s rage lick at his flesh and make him sing.

“ _ What is this?”  _ Voldemort’s sharp hiss was like the crack of a whip.

The Death Eater released him immediately, a terrified choking sound fleeing the man’s mouth almost as if Voldemort had already cursed him for daring to touch what was  _ his _ .

Harry laughed, unable to hold it any longer. His ribs ached, his stomach quivered, cock growing hard for the first time that night at the sound of Voldemort’s sibilant hiss.

This was what Harry  _ lived  _ for. This moment, the look of fear in his subject’s eyes and the  _ anger  _ in Voldemort’s voice. It was delicious.

“M-my Lord, it’s not—’ but Voldemort gave the man no time to explain himself. Within seconds, Harry was wrenched away by a powerful force Harry did nothing to fight against, and then, the room shook with the force of the man’s screams.

Harry hardly noticed the minute his back smashed into the wall behind him, not when Voldemort’s magic was pressing against his skin. His anger and his will bored into him, rendering him breathless for a moment.

It didn’t take him long to recover, however. He was accustomed to Voldemort’s violence, to the potent magic even if being deprived of his radiance had softened him slightly. But that had passed, and now, Harry could enjoy the  _ spoils  _ that his conquest had produced.

The sounds were like music to his ears, the sight of the pathetic man’s body writhing and twisting,  _ begging  _ for his Lord to spare him like the sweetest candy. It should have repulsed him to witness this, made him  _ guilty  _ to see a man that had no hand in the cold murder of his friends, of the splintering of his sanity, but it didn’t. It hadn’t in all the years Harry had preyed on the weak Death Eaters Voldemort employed in his home.

They were  _ all  _ the same, after all.

“ _ Do you not grow tired of the games? _ ” Voldemort hissed, irritation and rage like the heat of a wildfire. “ _ How many must I kill before you see that you are  _ mine?” 

Harry did not bother to answer, shifting his gaze away from the writhing and screaming Death Eater to level Voldemort with a mischievous look, tongue peaking out to lick languidly at his bottom lip.

Voldemort stood beside the door. Serpentine features twisted, eyes bright with his fury. His eyes were entirely on Harry, never straying from him even when the Death Eater begged and screamed for mercy and forgiveness. It was like Voldemort and Harry were the only two in the room.

“ _ How many is it now? _ ” Harry asked, ignoring the man’s questions. “ _ Twenty-five? Fifty-two? I’ve lost count. _ ”

Voldemort’s expression hardened further, and then, Harry was flying, his body propelled forward, wrenched close enough to the Dark Lord that he could see his own bright green eyes reflected in Voldemort’s red stare. 

There were slits in Voldemort’s eyes where there should have been round, black pupils. There were scales and smooth gaunt flesh where there should have been the flush of blood flowing through a network of capillaries on Voldemort’s face.

_ And you can’t get enough of this, can you? _

A grotesque monster laid before him, dressed in robes of the highest quality. A king, a  _ Lord _ , despite the atrocities he had committed to achieve what he had. He’d leveled the earth, moved the stars to fit his own image. He’d twisted the laws and the promises of those that stood against him, driven a wedge between the muggles and the wizards that no one had a means of superseding. 

Lord Voldemort had become a  _ god _ . A fearsome creature that smote all that dared snub him, to turn against him even when it was useless...

And his attention was all on  _ him.  _ His and his alone.

It was breathtaking, a different kind of excitement making his skin flush. Because Lord Voldemort was looking at  _ him.  _ This man, no, this angry  _ god _ , guarded him. His zealous protector, Voldemort’s greatest treasure despite the cracks and fault lines along his innards.

_ Voldemort’s pride, Voldemort’s joy, Vodemort’s  _ horcrux _ — _

Harry’s fingers itched to touch, wanted nothing more than to dig his fingers in the same fashion the Death Eater dying just a short distance away had. Harry wanted to brand, to bleed his touch into Voldemort’s skin. To unmake him, to sully him in the same way Voldemort had done him.

It would be poetic justice, as the monster of Voldemort’s own making, to return the favor. The thought aroused him, stoked a monstrous hunger Harry had no means of containing, had no interest in repressing.

“ _ Such a cruel creature you’ve become...”  _ Voldemort murmured, one pale hand lifting to caress his cheeks. Memorizing the skin, or perhaps, reacquainting himself with flesh Voldemort had not touched since he’d left to talk  _ business  _ with the Magical Congress in America. 

Shivers ran up Harry’s spine at the way Voldemort’s touch harmonized with his magic, the way his darkness sought out the black of his own, devouring it just as Harry’s light had been swallowed by the emptiness that had wormed its way into his mind. 

“... _ From _ a _ golden daffodil to a poisonous flower... _ ” 

Harry’s back arched when Voldemort’s fingers made their way to his scar and a jolt of mind-scrambling ecstasy exploded in response. A loud whine tore from his throat, cock swelling to the point of pain with need for  _ more _ . The connection made him feel  _ alive _ , made his blood sing. 

It was so much better than the pained screams of all the victims that had fallen prey to his seduction. This was  _ nirvana _ , this was completion, this was—

“... _ You truly are my Valour.” _


	36. Master of None

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: T  
> Warnings: Blood, Dark Themes, Role Reversal

_Please don’t go._

Tom stilled, his vision swirling red and pink. The emptiness around him was unheard and unseen, his body floating in the shadows as if being carried away by prowling creatures of the night.

Droplets fell from somewhere above him. They splattered, the soft ping sliding across glass, dragging along the smooth surface of his mind.

All that he knew was red. The pink swirls along his vision and the bright crimson in his mind’s eye were all that he was capable of understanding. Nothing else mattered. _Registered_.

The fine streaks were everything now.

How...strange that was.

The world had once been colorful. Greens, blues, and yellows had once danced along his gaze. He’d scoffed at them, considered them a waste of his own energy. For what did it matter to him? Color in a sea of numbness? Color in a world where none _saw_ what he saw, understood that there was so much more than the pairing of lavender hues with gleaming gold?

How silly it had all been to him, and now there was only red and—

_A voice that screams above your head, that calls and calls for you in the hopes that you’d listen. Like a long lost friend, a lover that you’d once held in your arms before casting them away from something nameless…_

A blistering pain tore through him at the thought. Heavy pulsations and acidic bile bubbled along the back of his throat, beating wildly with the slow rhythm of his heart. It was unyielding. It was only thing Tom could discern through the heaviness of his eyelids.

Tom blinked, but there was only red. He breathed, and there was iron coating his tongue.

 _Please don’t go_.

That voice again. Tom strained to listen further, but it faded too quickly for him to capture. It was as if his fingers were rummaging through sand, reaching into the grainy particles for a kernel of _something_ that refused to be found.

It was irksome. Frustrating in a way only Tom understood because he had never known denial. There was no “no,” it was only ever “yes” when he demanded it. Answers came easily. Mysteries unraveled before his eyes in the same way a flower unfolded and became a bloom in the spring.

But this was no flower. There was no answer to the nothing. There was no solution to the ennui that threatened to overcome him; the darkness coiling around his neck to strangle all the air that managed to seep through the cracks of his teeth.

There was only _nothing_.

_Please don’t go._

Tom wanted to ask it where. He wanted to know where it was that he was going because he was here. Wherever here was. He was unmoving. A stone dropped into a watery basin in the loneliest cell. A haven bathed in crimson was all that he was allowed to see.

_T-tom wake up._

A sharp sound rattled in his head like the jingle of coins in a glass jar. His teeth ached, his fingers curling into themselves until his nails cut into the skin.

He was on a cloud with no means of coming down. The higher he went, the louder the rattling was. The colder his soul, the harder to listen it became, and Tom didn’t know when he had resigned himself to this. When that voice had ceased to be charming and had become a thorn in his side.

It pushed, and pushed, and _pushed—_

_Tom._

His name reverberated in the chasm as though a thousand men were chanting his name. Amusement curled in his stomach, foreign and unwanted, in response. A thousand men chanting his name, how many evenings had he spent dreaming of that day?

Only for now, for it to mean absolutely nothing. What did it matter if you were worshipped without true loyalty? What did a _name_ matter when no one would dare utter it behind closed doors? What was a title when no one would recognize it years down the line...and the only one that listened was the voice in one’s head?

A sharp smile curled on his face, his lips nearly tearing from the effort. How easy it had once been to pretend, to be the person that everyone dreamed that he would become. It had all been for a cause, he had told himself. All the chips would fall as they may, his rule definite in the grander scheme of things.

How wrong he had been. Now all that remained was red and pink with the occasional cry of his name in the chasm.

_Come back._

Tom laughed, only to choke seconds after. It was a dry, hacking sound. Throat aching, his chest swelled with the effort that it took to reign it in.

 _Return to where?_ Where would he go when it all was nothing and would remain as such? Perhaps when he had first fallen into this darkness, he might have entertained the thought of acting. He might have debated, considered the idea the voice posited.

Those days had long since passed.  

Tom did not have the energy to do it any longer. He had lost his strength, had lost his will to move when everything had been wrenched away from him.

His hopes and his dreams? Tom laughed, and _laughed_ , until his sides ached. He laughed until his chest was ready to burst, lungs pressing against his rib cage in protest of the abuse. His stomach quivered, trembled and fought against his efforts. His body had no desire to obey, no will to yield to its master’s whims.

Obedience.

It hadn’t been the case for some time. Would not be the case for as long as Tom existed in this amorphous plane.

_Ping._

A droplet fell on his cheek, and Tom exhaled.

Then another and another rained against his skin. The thick stench of iron consumed him, his eyes blinking repeatedly through the storm raging above him.

The droplets doused him in red. The baptismal waters of his sins and his undoing slapping against him without delay.

_Ping. Ping. Ping._

Tom didn’t know how long it went.

Then it all abruptly fell silent. Even the current of water had stilled.

There were no breaths. All that remained were the thoughts oozing through his mind, the slick sensation of viscous red on his bare skin.

 _Tom._ A voice whispered, hesitant.

 _P-please don’t leave me. Listen just this once, damn it._ Listen _to me._

Tom sunk into the warmth surrounding him, into the waters clinging to his skin, to the slickness undulating around him like the moon pulling against the ocean. Waves lapped at him now, the stillness erupting into swaying.

Then, drowsiness. The same oppressive weight of it settled on his shoulders, curled around his waist and bled into his flesh.

Tom let himself be carried, the voice growing fainter and fainter. The nothing now more welcoming than the voice that seemed to know his name, than the voice that begged him so sweetly to escape the comforts of the abyss and fall into the unknown.

 _I-I love you. I_ love _you. I wish I had told you before you—_

What?

Tom’s insides curled, and he jerked. His body was shaking now, the droplets growing cold, ice and winter stroking his skin.

The words sliced through him, into him. An unwanted recognition bled through the nothing that he did not wish to name. For what was more dangerous than naming the unknown? Was not the giving of a name the most powerful act?

The voice went on as if Tom were not struggling, _writhing, bending,_ to make it stop. It was as if he were fighting against a rip current, pushing against the waters in the hopes that he would not drown, become another sailor swept away by the caprices of a cruel ocean.

_I wish you would come back. I wish you could hear me now, that you could t-touch me the way you used to when I was on the verge of falling asleep in lessons. They told me that maybe one day you might wake up, that you might—_

Pain thundered through him. A flash of green exploded behind his eyes, the wave of red falling away.

_Forests. Emeralds. Slytherin._

Tom’s spine bowed, his eyes glazing over.

 _Black. Caramel. Sweat. Red. Gold. Gold._ Green.

A cold sweat broke out along his brow, his teeth gnashing on his tongue. Iron gushed into his mouth, but there was nothing or no one to stop the images flashing behind his eyes.

_Calloused fingers curled around his hair. Pink lips parted into a wide gasp. Tears and dewy green eyes focused on—_

_Harry_.

The name came unbidden.

Tom choked, hands uncurling to wrap around his throat, to stop the pressure depriving him of air. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t tell which way was up or down, not when everything was swirling.

The world around him trembled, his skin blistered and melted. The shadows fell away, bright light eating up the nothing as horror overcame him.

_No._

The world heaved one last time before it all went white.

Light exploded around him, heat and horror chasing closely behind it.

_No._

Everything that he’d planned, that he’d sought was coming apart. His memories, his everything was returning back to him. Images of a world he’d once known, of a future far more concrete than he remembered oozed into his pores, through the crevices of his eyes, and the openings of his ears.

His failure. His title. His reputation.

It had not always been _nothing_. It’d been stripped from him, taken from him when he’d least expected it.

How had he _forgotten_ this? How had he forgotten that—

“Tom.”

A familiar voice murmured above him.

A chill swept through him, and it took him longer than he wished to open his eyes to witness for himself the true reason for his bedridden state.

Tom had not fallen into the unknown by mistake. He had lived in nothing out of _choice_ , not because he had _lost_ his ambition along the winding path _._ He had sunken to the bottom of this pit, become one with the shadows, not because he had been _imprisoned_ there but because there was simply no other way or means of escaping his fate.

He’d been given no _choice._

Tom blinked slowly, repeatedly, and the world slowly flickered into existence.

Green flashed, and then caramel. A head of dark hair and pink lips curled into an easy-going smile that was no less deceptive than it was charming. A haunting image Tom never thought he’d witness again.

There was an endless sea of white on all sides, like molasses in the back of one’s throat.

Tom blinked, and the blurred edges sharpened with each one. His unease mounting more and more when it all finally came together.

Tom awoke in a depilated clinic.  

Fear lodged itself in his throat, sharp and bitter.

There was a slow rustling sound before a boy slipped from underneath white linen sheets, dark hair and shocking green eyes leaving little doubt as to who this person was.

Harry Potter hovered above Tom, the depilated surroundings forgotten. It was always easy to forget the world whenever Harry walked into a room. The boy’s presence was magnetic. A flame that drew all that wished to be bathed in its heavenly warmth.

If only Tom had _known_ that Harry was not who he seemed. If only Tom had known that the flame he’d been captivated by had the potential to _burn_ even those favored by Harry Potter. It was chaos. It knew nothing of restraint. Brazen and unrefined, a formidable creature that Tom had quickly lost control of.

Tom made to move, to leap off the bed to reach for his wand—he’d left it right by his side before falling into a deep sleep in the hopes that he’d never be found—but it was no longer beneath his pillow. The pale yew was absent. The comforting weight of its magic non-existent, as if it’d been stripped of all of its magical properties.

Harry must have gotten to it first before he’d bothered to awaken Tom. It was what Tom would have done had their positions been reversed.

“Welcome back to the world of the living.” Harry purred before lowering himself, his body pressing flush against Tom’s, lips nearly brushing Tom’s, eyes focused entirely on Tom’s wide gaze. The hairs on Tom’s arms stood on end at the affront.

Man was perfectly predictable. Tom had learned this first hand. Tom knew how to read them, how to dangle before their eyes their greatest desires. He’d mastered this art early on through his unfortunate upbringing, but that would do little for him here. Man was predictable, easily coaxed into doing as he wished, but a _beast_...a beast was far more unpredictable.

This boy was not human—had not been one from what Tom had uncovered during their last duel many moons ago. This boy was a _monster_ , a being that could not conceivably exist but did. For what man, what _beast_ , could survive even a Killing Curse? What entity lived, even without its head? Without its heart beating in its chest?

No creature that Tom knew could survive that.

“How I have _missed_ you.”

The boy smiled at him, a small and disarming gesture that did nothing to soothe the mounting terror in Tom’s gut.  

_Master of Death. Master of All. Master of You._

The Tales of Beedle the Bard had not been mere fiction. The stories had been real, had been a warning and promise woven into one. The means to acquiring the Hallows, to acquiring immortality, had all been there.

And they all belonged to Harry Potter.

The boy that refused to die, the boy that lingered in Tom’s shadow, waiting for him to lower his guard.

_An absolute madman._

“It’s been far too long.”


	37. Mala In Se

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: A fic where one of Harry’s senses is completely cut off and Voldemort uses that against him + Harrymort  
> Rating: M  
> Warnings: Mentions of Eye torture, Mindfuckery, Sensory Deprivation, Medical Setting, and overall creepiness
> 
> For anonymous!
> 
> Thank you, miistical for betating <3

_Harry._

Whispers echoed in the back of his head. Like the creak of an old wooden door, like the screeching halt of a train at its destination, the voices spoke to him.

Endlessly, they promised him wonders beyond his imagination. Far beyond the four walls around him, its walls weighed down by different fabrics to protect him from harming himself...or so they said. A _safe_ place, where the monsters lurking in the four corners of his mind could not find him. It had looked more like an asylum than a bedroom, if anything.

_A gilded prison made solely for you._

All this hogwash about _safety_ was a load of bollocks. Empty promises that the voices in his head fed him to keep him pacified. As if the voices somehow knew that anything short of _excellent_ for Voldemort’s guest would result in punishment. It was silly that voices could _fear_ something like that. They weren’t real, and never would be.

“Harry?” An unknown male murmured, the faux sympathy enough to make Harry’s lip curl. “Dr. Riddle would like to see you.”

 _Dr. Riddle._ The name was wrong, all of it was _wrong_ . His name was _Voldemort._ Greatest Dark Wizard to ever pass through Hogwarts’ halls.

“Come on, my hand is right in front of you. All you have to do is reach for it.”

Harry did no such thing. He didn’t want to touch him or anyone in his cell.

So when a calloused hand clasped onto his forearm and lifted him to his feet, he didn’t flinch. This was standard protocol. Ever since he’d been blinded by Voldemort,he was not his own. He couldn’t move without a guide to lead him to the loo or to his own bed. He spent his days sitting in the same seat as any other, wishing for death to come for him or for his friends to rescue him from this nightmare.

They said that _Hogwarts_ wasn’t real. They said that magic and spells, and everyone that he had known were all in his head.

_Bullshite._

Voldemort was real. The fact that he could not see, eyes no longer his when he’d called Voldemort a disgusting beast many months into his capture, was evidence enough. Harry didn’t regret his words nor being blinded. At the time, and even now, it had been worth it, the satisfaction of knowing that the Voldemort was _vain_ even when he’d disfigured himself…

Harry had laughed even through the pain, even when his eyes had been pulled straight from his sockets weeks ago.

And these bastards now wanted to pretend that his suffering had all been made up?

_Never._

“Come on, let’s go. Let’s not keep Dr. Riddle waiting.”

Harry grunted, nearly tripping over his numb feet, before he quickly oriented himself. The stranger huffed an exasperated breath before gently pulling him along an unknown path to Voldemort, the ground beneath him melting from soft padding to harsh concrete within moments.

It was unsurprising. Harry hardly remembered the number of times he’d been dragged away from his own room and to the Dark Lord. There was no doubt that it was bordering a hundred, Voldemort’s incessant desire to gloat far exceeded his annoyance when Harry did not react as he liked.

After all, Harry was no longer any fun. He could not scream. His vocal chords had become so damaged that he couldn’t speak complete sentences. All he was capable of were grunts and monosyllabic words.

“Remember to behave yourself. We don’t want to have to sedate you again.”

Harry ignored the male’s words, lost in thought.

Before his captivity, Harry had been whole. He could still see, could still _speak_ , and now, he was nothing but an invalid that relied upon the monster’s followers to care for himself. The voices in his head manifesting into physical beings that chided and commanded him to obey, even when Harry was certain that he _shouldn’t._ It was the same story, the same monotonous routine

_Be a good boy, Harry dear, and you won’t feel a thing. Yes, Harry, that’s it, let me bathe you so that you could look presentable. It’s not real, Harry, none of it ever was. We’re here to help you, to cure you._

On and on the voices went, touching him and manipulating him. A live doll for Voldemort’s own personal entertainment. It was...awful. A fate more terrible than anyone could ever imagine.

To have to doubt every thought in his head...Harry wondered if Voldemort wanted him to go insane. If, maybe, Voldemort wanted him to break first before killing him?

But even still, none of the horrors he’d faced since his stay in this bloody place could compare to the knowledge that he could never wield magic again. Not in the way he used to. His voice was lost, a garbled mess on most days. It wouldn’t nearly be as horrible if he was capable of non-verbal magic, but he wasn’t. He wasn’t as proficient as the Dark Lord was.

This knowledge had hurt in many ways, even if he had no wand to wield magic anyway. Voldemort had snapped Draco’s wand, so even if he _could_ speak, he had nothing. He was blind and mute. It was a miracle, truly, that he wasn’t deaf. Made completely helpless within Voldemort’s grasp.

...Then again, Voldemort would never permit Harry to be cut himself off entirely. The monster required that Harry listen to him. It was not nearly as enjoyable to torture him, or to kill the friends he captured, without Harry being able to listen to each cry or snap of their bones.

_Pathetic, pathetic man._

Always telling him to _listen_ because it was for his own _good_ . That he was only there to help him. Sure, he was there to help him straight into his _grave._

“Dr. Riddle.”

Harry was whisked away from his thoughts by the sound of the Death Eater’s cordial statement. It was all the warning Harry had before he was pushed into a soft seat. The backs of his knees smacked into a hard surface, and then he was failing back, arms flailing out to catch onto the armrests before he embarrassed himself.

_Arsehole._

“Thank you, you may step outside.”

The sound of Voldemort’s voice raised all the hairs on the back of Harry’s neck. An irrepressible shudder crawling up his spine when the Death Eater that had accompanied him to Voldemort’s office— _the study? The dining room? Harry didn’t know_ —quickly departed, the tone of the monster’s voice had left no room for disobedience.

There was the sound of rapid footsteps cutting across the room, the sound growing fainter and fainter with each passing second until finally, all fell into silence.

It was just him and Voldemort now. Harry did not let this fact unsettle him. They’d been alone a number of times before. There was nothing Voldemort could do to him that he hadn’t done to him already.

“Harry Potter...so glad that you could join me this evening.”

Harry snorted, slowly turning his head in the direction he had heard the man’s voice emanate from. Voldemort was somewhere ahead of him, perhaps a few feet, if Harry had to guess.

“Are you enjoying your newest accommodations?”

Harry did not move, made no indication that was even listening to the question. Voldemort knew well that he was blind and mute. There was nothing for him to enjoy.

“Any grievances you wish to mention?”

Harry’s lip curled with irritation. He had plenty. The first being that he was a bloody _prisoner_ with no means of escaping. The fact that he heard voices in his head that made it difficult to think or even recall why he was even there in the first place. Of course, Voldemort _knew_ all of this. Harry didn’t need to say it.

This was all for show. Small talk meant to needle at his brain, to drive him mad and entertain the bastard. It was all Voldemort ever did whenever he summoned Harry.

“Excellent.”

Harry grimaced, hoping that he didn’t look as exasperated as he felt. He wouldn’t give the monster the satisfaction. No, never again. Harry had made that mistake once before, and he’d paid the ultimate price.

That was the day Voldemort had taken his eyes.

There was little for the Dark Lord to take now, but Harry wasn’t stupid. He was expendable. A pet for Voldemort’s amusement until he finally lost his appeal and was swiftly executed. There was no reason for Voldemort to be keeping him alive. The war was won, and Harry was a simple trophy for him to hold over the heads of the few Order members still at large.

The fact that he wanted to _pretend_ to be someone that he was not. A doctor in some muggle ward when it was obvious that he wasn’t, only added insult to injury.

“Harry…”

Clothes rustled, and Harry had a short moment to brace himself before two hands latched onto his shoulders. Heat melted through the thin shirt, and Harry’s heart raced in his chest, fully expecting pain as there always was when Voldemort touched him.

“How are you feeling this evening? It has come to my attention that you’ve been refusing to take your medication again.”

Harry grit his teeth, jaw locking when Voldemort’s hands began to massage his shoulders. He didn’t want the man to touch him, didn’t want to be in the same room as him, but if he tried to get up or do anything that seemed violent, they’d strap him down to the seat and continue their session anyway.  Harry had to be smart, he had to ignore Voldemort’s obvious desire to provoke him.

Still, it was humorous how Voldemort spoke to him despite Harry’s inability to respond. What did he want Harry to say? Did he expect him to tell him he was _fine_? That he was perfectly alright sitting there with his warm hands on his shoulders, touching him?

_No thanks._

Harry did not reply, choosing instead to remain still even when Voldemort laughed lowly behind him, fingers smoothing over his shoulders and poking inside the collar of his shirt.

“You know I cannot allow this, Harry. You’re behaving like a recalcitrant child.”

Harry scoffed, and Voldemort laughed harder behind his back, his grip tightening before gentling once more when Harry stiffened beneath him. The touches were harmless enough, but at any moment, they could become violent.

Those fingers could close around his windpipe and strangle him within an inch of his life. Squeeze and squeeze until he finally fell still, lips blue and eyes wide open in death. The man was unpredictable. One moment he’d be amused with Harry’s antics, and then another, he’d be cursing his very existence. There was simply no telling what went on in the bastard’s head.

“Now now, no need to be rude. We are only here to help you.”

 _Liar_.

The fingers brushed lower on Harry’s shoulders, down to his collarbones to play with the low neckline of his shirt. Nails dragged along the fabric, the soft shift in the air enough to make Harry’s breaths come quicker than he’d wanted them to.

It was always this bloody touching. Helpless, unable to do anything at all because then he’d be tied down and _Merlin_ , he couldn’t stand it when they did that. Voldemort had tortured him, taken his eyes and his dignity, but he couldn’t stand to lose his ability to move, he couldn’t stand to be alone with Voldemort when he—

“ _Shhh_ , it’s okay. It’s only you and me, just as it should be.”

Harry swallowed, fingers tightening on the armrests beneath him. It was exactly because they were alone that he should be afraid, that he _was_ terrified, even if he didn’t want to acknowledge or reveal it.

 _Be a good boy, Harry, and look at me. Yes, that’s it. Good. I want you to watch me as I take your eyes. I want to see my face reflected in your gaze. It is only fitting that the face of a_ monster _be the final thing you look upon…_

Harry squeezed his eyes as tight as he could, ignoring the phantom memory of the monster’s voice and the way his claws had felt burying into his sockets.

_Breathe in, Harry. Don’t let him get to you, don’t let him play with your—_

“You’re shaking, Harry. Are you cold? Here, let me warm you up.”

Harry trembled when Voldemort embraced him from behind, choking him with the smell of cologne and rainwater. The man was like a furnace, but still, Harry shook as if winter’s icy breath had rolled over his skin and settled deep inside his rib cage.

Then, came the same voices. They breathed into his mind, crawled through each wrinkle in his mind in the same way Voldemort’s breath fanned against his neck.

_One. Two. Three. Breathe. Yes, that’s it. Scream for me one last time. I want to bottle up the sound and listen to it before bed, to take a piece of you with me when you’re slumbering away in your room._

A shudder rushed up his spine, and his fingernails cut into the armrests beneath him. His knuckles were white and stretched thin with the power of his grip, his fear and nausea washing through him in waves. If the monster did not let him go, if the monster did not stop _talking_ into his head, Harry was going to lose it.

He was already dangling near the precipice, the righteous indignation in his bones gone now that Voldemort had eroded it. It’d only been minutes and already he’d been rendered into putty.

Turned into the scared little boy he had been when he’d first been captured. Converted into a frightened young man that he’d become after hours of being blind. Transformed into a bitter adult after he’d lost his voice, his screams mangling his voice box until his cries would no longer come.

“There. Isn’t this much nicer, Harry? See how much better this is when you comply? When you allow me to soothe your aches and erase all those unpleasant memories swimming through your mind?”

“N-n,” Harry tried to deny it, to tell him _no_ , but the word would not come. There was no use. Frustrated tears welled at the corners of his eyes, but he did not let them fall. Oh, how he wished Voldemort had taken his tear ducts, too. Then, he wouldn’t look as pathetic as he felt.

“It is no easy feat to battle your demons, but with perseverance and proper treatment, we can certainly overcome them.”

 _No,_ Harry wanted to deny. There was nothing to overcome. The demon was _real_ and was speaking to him at that moment. Poisoning his mind as he always did with his _lies_ , insisting that Harry was crazy and that what he had experienced had only been some long-winded episode of dementia.

“Lord Voldemort is not real, but a physical manifestation of all of your fears and flaws. I don’t understand why you insist on holding onto this fiction, why you must fight so hard for a made-up entity that would never be.”

_No. No. No. N—_

“But it is alright, Harry.”

Voldemort’s arms tightened around him, and Harry felt a scream lodge itself in his throat. Terror curled low in his belly when Voldemort slowly retracted his hands from his body, dragging them along his sides until they stopped by his ears.

Harry’s blood ran cold when Voldemort’s nails played with the lobes for a moment before his palms cupped the flesh, immediately dampening the sounds surrounding him. They were the only thing he had left keeping him connected to the real world, the only thing left. Harry didn’t want his fingers anywhere near them.

“N-n,” Harry tried to scream, to beg, but the words went unheard.

Harry sucked in one shuddering breath, and then, all fell silent. Voldemort’s breaths and the faint whir of the air conditioner vibrating in the air dissipated like smoke. The rush of his blood flooding his ears, the hitch of his breaths flowing in and out of his throat, faded into nothing.

 _See no evil,_ a voice whispered in his head, and Harry _screamed_ , or at least, his mind did. He couldn’t be certain if he did in the real world, not when everything had gone silent. His mouth parted, but there was no certainty that sound fell from his tongue.

_Stop!_

His body thrashed, convulsing in his seat before hands latched onto his wrists and yanked them down to the armrests. Harry struggled in vain, thick leather wrapping around his wrists and strapping him down to the chair.

_No!_

_Speak no evil_ , the same voice washed over his thoughts and Harry fought against the straps restraining him, against the same hands pressed over his ears.

 _Hear no evil_ , Voldemort crooned, his hands pulling away from his ears to cup his cheeks, tears streaming down his skin in thick rivulets. A sharp point pushed into the inside of his arm, pumping him full of some strange liquid even as he struggled, cutting up his skin violently.

_H-hurts._

The pain grounded him. It was the only real connection to the world around him, to the reality that his senses had been taken from him one by one. It ached, stung unbearably, but it was better than nothing. More bearable than the abyss swallowing him whole.

Harry wasn’t sure what about this entire situation was most terrifying.

_Godric._

Harry hoped Voldemort would just kill him, that now that he had taken something more from him, he would cease these games. For once in his bloody life, Harry hoped that Voldemort would end the lies and at least confirm in that all of this was _real_ . That, somehow, this all wasn’t just in his _head._

_Oh Harry, of course, this is all happening in your head. But what makes you think none of this is real?_

The voice washed through him, heaviness settling deep into the marrow of his bones. Whatever it was that they pumped into him was taking effect, and Harry didn’t want to go. He didn’t want to sleep, no, not _again_.

He didn’t—

_Silly little horcrux._


End file.
